


Surface Tension

by unknown_knowns



Series: The One Good Thing in Seattle [1]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/F, but some Max POV as well, it's like a drama sandwich really, meaning there's some cute bits in the middle, mostly Victoria POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-18 06:58:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8153099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknown_knowns/pseuds/unknown_knowns
Summary: Victoria breezes through her classes.Until she doesn’t.Victoria means the world to someone.Until she doesn’t.Victoria controls her own life.Until she doesn’t.





	1. Crush

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, Friends. 
> 
> I wrote this as a character study of Victoria. As such, it will be mostly from her POV. There's little bits of Max here and there where I think it is most relevant and useful.
> 
> This is basically what came out of my mind when I tried to unravel how someone could be at once confident and jealous, at once mean and nice, at once self-motivated and self-critical, at once perfect and so very deeply flawed.
> 
> I think the result is a believable character with as many endearing personality traits as there are character faults. I hope I can help you see VIctoria in a new light.
> 
>  
> 
> This is set a few years before the events of Life Is Strange. Max is in Seattle. So is Victoria. 
> 
> One thing leads to another. 
> 
> This is intended as a prequel to Diametrically Opposed. If you’ve already read that, then you already know how this is going to turn out, but I think there’s fun in the way getting there, anyway. 
> 
> This story does not have a happy ending.
> 
> But DO does, so you can go read that immediately after this, and feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
> 
> As always, I deeply appreciate comments, and will try to read and reply to every one of them.
> 
> I also [have a tumblr](https://i-know-unkown-knowns.tumblr.com/) if that's your kink or you want to ask me things.

Victoria carefully peeled herself out of bed.

It was still an hour or two before she had to really be anywhere or do anything.

Since very early in her childhood, the rigors of scheduling and meticulous attention to detail had been drilled into her.

She never woke up late.

And she always did her morning run.

She cracked her neck and moved to her closet to find her running outfit.

She put it on thoughtlessly, automatically.

She paused by her mirror on the way outside of her room.

She really should be wearing _some_ kind of makeup.

A Chase is always looking her best.

But it was still impossibly early in the morning, and the sun hadn’t even started to rise yet.

She’d be fine without it.

She liked to shower, afterwards, anyway, and that would just be wasteful.

She made her way outside of her room and into the vacuous hallways of her house.

Her parents were wealthy.

They were the big-time owners of a few local art galleries and were expanding outside of Seattle.

The particulars of her family’s finances were never much of a burden to her. Despite the stereotype, her father was always around when she needed it, and her mother always knew the right things to say.

They were a little strict, but she couldn’t argue with the results, so far.

But this fucking house.

Her room was too big, somehow.

This house was too big, somehow.

These hallways were too big, somehow.

They felt simultaneously too big and too small. The distance all around her was unsettling and uncomfortable, stifling despite being the opposite.

It wasn’t a home. It was a trophy. A status symbol.

_Look at us, world. We’re the Chases. We’re very successful. Can’t you tell by the big fucking house?_

The way her voice echoed distantly off of the walls never really sat right with her.

Nor did all of these creepy fucking paintings and statues everywhere. Her parents tried to fill the place up with rich people affections. It didn’t make it feel any less empty.

Even now, she could hear her footsteps making echoes as she made her way outside.

She always tried to walk as diligently as possible so she wouldn’t have to hear it.

She wondered if there was such a thing as the opposite of claustrophobia.

 

After she made her way outside, she did a little bit of stretching.

Her running was more of a fast jog and wasn’t really all that exerting, but the stretching helped to wake her up.

She put in her earbuds and started her most aggressive, angry hip-hop play list and began to walk briskly.

She’d start running when she made it to the park and run for about a mile.

Sometimes more, sometimes less.

She didn’t do it for any particular muscle or regimen, she just did it to be healthy and lively.

A Chase is always in the best shape of their life.

But running always sucked unless you kept your mind off of the activity itself.

This period of her day was always one of the most peaceful and thoughtful, despite the angry music blaring and her heart racing.

She thought about what she would do today.

She really should be more nervous about today.

Today was her first day of her second year of high school.

She knew how many people worried themselves into disturbed little knots over it.

Worrying about how they would appear.

Worrying about if they would fit in.

If they would make friends.

If they would be successful.

Victoria didn’t worry about any of that.

Her first year at high school was astonishingly successful.

She breezed through her classes, despite taking the more difficult ones that put her on the path for earning college credits.

She made friends readily.

She could fit into whatever social group she really wanted to.

Well, she could make friends and fit in, but she knew deep down that a lot of it was due to her money.

Most her friends, if she was being any degree of honest with herself, weren’t really the kinds she’d trust with any issues or troubles she had that day.

They were sycophants.

Dirty, groveling leeches.

They wanted to be close to her for her name and her money. So that their lives may be enriched, either vicariously or directly.

Her parents had insisted that she not go to a private school.

They were not folks of old money and didn’t want a spoiled brat of a daughter who didn’t know the value of a dollar or the value of a good friend.

At the time, Victoria didn’t care one way or the other. She didn’t plan on being a rich, snobby socialite. Her ambitions were for artistry.

But she came to quietly resent the decision. It complicated her social circle so much to be one of the only people with real wealth in the school.

She couldn’t trust that any friends she made were real.

She couldn’t trust that any connections she made were meaningful.

She couldn’t trust that any kindness she received was out of someone’s goodwill and not just a groveling effort to earn something in return.

She unconsciously tightened her fists as she made her way past half a mile.

The rest of her run left her feeling more stressed than she would have wanted.

She decided to take an extra hot, extra long shower.

Out of all of the things that someone could complain about, complaining about being rich surely must be the most absurd of them.

Yet here she was, doing it anyway.

She just sat under the hot waters of the shower until all of her concerns about being unable to make real friends melted away.

Real friends might not do her much good in the art world, anyway.

Her parents didn’t seem to have very many, despite or in part due to their success.

She was lying to herself and she knew it.

 

After the shower was over with she dried off and put on enough underwear so as to be decent. She parked herself in front of her mirror with all of her makeup equipment.

And didn’t move for like half an hour.

Well, that wasn’t quite right. She moved her hands an awful lot in the process of styling her hair and applying her make up.

Her hair was short and blonde. She kept it even shorter on the sides and a little bit longer near her bangs to give her some hair to work with.

She had tried all kinds of styles, but eventually settled on just sweeping it back and to one side, and carefully cementing it in place with several pounds of hair product.

It was easiest to manipulate while her hair was still wet, so she always did it first.

She really liked long hair, but didn’t like how it looked on herself. She was never quite sure why. Her mother always said “cheekbones” but Victoria had the feeling she was just being polite.

Whatever. It’s not like her cheekbones ever looked as they did naturally after she was done with them.

She was very meticulous with her makeup. It was important to her to appear without flaws in public.

A Chase doesn’t let the enemy see your weaknesses.

And she was pretty good at it.

She could erase almost all of the natural faults in her skin, since those had no place on a young woman. She could make her cheeks and jawline more defined since she had a face for that, it just needed a little encouragement to bring it out.

She could even make her eyes stand out more with some careful use of eyeshadow. She was always resentful that she had dark eyes instead of blue, like her parents. Where the hell did the dark genes come from, anyway.

She could also make her lips fuller, but she chose to not do as much as she could. Too much contrast and she looked like a cheap prostitute.

The Victoria that came away from the mirror was a different beast from the one who approached it originally. The Victoria with makeup was confident. She always had a plan. She never stammered or handled a situation awkwardly. She was always in control of the situation.

The Victoria without her makeup only existed at night when no one was looking, so it wasn’t important. Not even her parents saw this Victoria. It didn’t exist. She made sure of that.

After being satisfied with her work, she went to her closet and picked out some clothes for today.

She chose tactically.

In order for her to effectively figure out who was a dirty sycophant and who wasn’t, she devised all manner of little tests here and there. One such test was she would wear clothes of a particular manner.

In this case, she chose some that were a season or two behind. If she met anyone who could dress worth a damn and didn’t bring it up, she’d know.

They were still nice clothes, though. This cashmere material was probably worth more than entire wardrobes of some of her peers.

Most of the kids at her school could _not_ dress worth a damn, so this was an effective test, she figured, that didn’t impose much risk to her. She’d still look like she owned the school.

Victoria finished getting dressed, satisfied with her attack plan, and exited her room to make her way to the kitchen.

They had people for it, but her mother still liked to cook in the mornings. It helped her to feel more “wife-y” and connected to her family.

They could use any such small creature comforts they could get. Both of Victoria’s parents were viciously busy to go along with their vicious success. They traded off time to be around Victoria, and usually aligned their schedules so that only one would be around her at any given time.

Victoria didn’t mind. Some part of her said she should care to see her parents more often and they won’t be forever, but that part of her was small and easy to ignore. Particularly now, at her age.

Besides. When they were together, they schemed of ways to extract information out Victoria, asking her how her day went or this and that. She could do without that.

Victoria entered the kitchen.

“Victoria, sweetie, I made you some eggs.”

Victoria grunted.

This grunting wasn’t new, and her mother had pieced together the careful grunting language that was spoken by teens to their parents.

“No time for protest. Eat. You need food in your body if you’re going to run every day.”

Victoria bit her lip, but it was hard to argue with her mother’s logic.

Her mother came by with a plate of freshly-cooked scrambled eggs.

How pedestrian.

Victoria accepted it anyway.

And tried not to get too annoyed when her mother patted her on the top of her head.

“ _Um_ , still wet!”

“Oh, it’s fine, dear, stop worrying.”

Victoria scoffed and took her plate outside of the kitchen.

Her mother didn’t stop smiling even after she left.

 

Victoria ate her food and had her mother drive her to campus.

She had a learner’s permit and everything ready to go, but it wouldn’t be until next year before she could drive herself, all alone.

It was probably going to be the longest year of her life.

Since it meant at least 20 minutes each way of at least one of her parents and no way out of the situation.

Her mother was particularly merciless. Her father was at least usually pensive in the mornings.

“Victoria sweetie, did you check your bag yet?”

Victoria grunted again and frowned slightly.

But she didn’t move. She kept looking outside of the car window at the meaningless movement of scenery all around them.

Her mother turned her head slightly.

“Use your words, please.”

Victoria rolled her eyes.

“No.”

“Can you look, then, please? Your father left a note for you.”

“My _father_ was in _my_ bag?”

“Mmhm. Who do you think bought it? Just look, please.”

Victoria grunted again. She hated every step of this logic.

But, she knew her mother would leave her alone if she humored her, so she resentfully obeyed and found a day planner that she didn’t recognize. It had a cutesy pink bow with her name on it.

Satisfied, her mother went back to paying full attention to the road.

There was nothing particularly unusual about the present, except a note from her father on the first page.

_V,_

_One of the biggest parts of growing up is learning how to schedule your time and still achieve your goals._

_Remember, a Chase always has a plan, and is never caught off-guard._

_I want you to write down a goal you want to achieve._

_Your goal can just be for today, for the whole week, or even for the whole school year._

_And --- with a real pen, it won’t count if you just have it somewhere in your phone._

Mr. “People don’t care about their signatures but I do” had a stamp of his perfect signature and used that instead of signing it himself. But the rest of the note was in his hand writing.

A very heavily-slanted cursive style that Victoria disliked reading.

She rolled her eyes again and put the day planner back into her bag.

She didn’t need goals.

She was a Chase.

She was perfect.

How hard could her second year possibly be?

She zoned out to the scenery once more.

She always tried to pay attention to herself and her surroundings when she was lost to thought, but in this case, with her mother playing the most dreadful of dated pop songs and quietly singing along, she really didn’t want anything else but to just lose herself fully.

 

Victoria had already memorized her schedule.

She was not going to be caught staring at her agenda like a fish desperate for water.

She knew exactly where she was going, and casually made her way to her first class.

It was an elective.

Photography.

Victoria loved photography.

Her father insisted she focus on something more “practical” like ROTC or engineering.

But he could deal.

He was a fucking hypocrite, anyway, being the owner of an art gallery.

How “practical” could his education have possibly been?

It did take her entire freshman year to figure it out, though. She had listened to her father for that first year.

But she knew what she wanted, now, and she knew she was going to crush this introductory course.

She was a minute or so early, since she wasn’t going to be a second late, but also wasn’t going to be so early so as to appear to care that deeply about the class.

Since while she did quite love photography, the information that it was valuable to her was preciously guarded.

All of her interests were.

Victoria took her seat and stared at her nails while supporting her head with her other hand.

They were getting a bit long.

She ought to trim them.

Later.

“Lookit ‘dis dweeb!”

“Did you fall out of bed or somethin’, girly?”

Victoria heard the raised voices and very slowly moved her attention towards the source of the interruption.

The voices were certainly not aimed at her. It was near the entrance to the class. There were two of them.

Her nails were far more interesting than whomever was getting bullied.

But it would be helpful to know what kind of a pathetic fucking loser managed to get themselves bullied on their first class, on their first day.

It was almost an achievement in loserdom.

Some girl. Tiny thing. Dark brown hair. Dressed like a mom or something. Boring jeans. Boring jacket. Some stupid fucking graphic tee with an animal on it.

Yawn.

Victoria could not find the will within herself to summon even one little ounce of care for the little shithead that was being bullied.

But.

It was now exactly time for class to start.

And tweedle dee and tweedle dum here would interrupt that.

This was an opportunity for herself to establish who was in control here.

She didn’t recognize any of the faces in here; everyone needed to know she was.

It’s all a chess game. This girl was just a pawn in it.

She projected her voice clearly and loudly.

“ _Um_ , class _is_ starting. Some of us actually come here to use our brains, you know.”

They both shot her a dirty look, but the teacher opened the door to the class room and started to look expectantly at them.

Begrudgingly, they made their way to some desks.

Far away from Victoria.

Score.

Little girly girl scampered into the room.

Right in front of Victoria.

She took the seat right there.

Ugh.

Victoria was _this_ close to saying something, but she quickly looked around the room first and realized it was the only seat left, now.

Shit.

Oh well.

Not like this little pipsqueak was going to be much of a nuisance. She could have ended up with one of the dudebros sitting there.

That would have been _fun_.

Victoria didn’t care, she decided. There’s no way this loser would have the confidence to do anything. It’d be like having an empty seat in front of her.

It would be easier to pay attention to her class this way.

Victoria looked to the front of the class room.

The teacher was still getting ready.

He was putting up pictures on the blackboard – what is this, 1960? The projector was _right there_ – and drawing various diagrams and lines between them.

Victoria decided her nails were more interesting, still.

When her attention was back to her desk, she noticed girly girl was slightly turned around.

She was looking at Victoria, now.

Her face was covered in freckles.

This poor loser was a walking freckle.

And she had really beautiful blue eyes.

Victoria definitely was not jealous for how blue they were.

They were the exact shade she always wanted.

Her hair was a mess, though, she clearly spent zero time this morning bothering with it.

It still looked wet.

Did she seriously just get ready five minutes ago?

It was maddening. Freckle here just lucked into better genes and didn’t bother to put any effort actually bringing it out into the world.

But Victoria remembered herself, and put on a scowl.

The hell did this loser want, anyway? She had no business looking this way.

The gaze was easily more than enough to make girly girl look downwards, nervously.

But she kept her body pointed in the same direction.

She had something to say.

Victoria spoke first since waiting for this thing to continue was exhausting.

“ _What_?”

She made her words very pointed and sharp. To injure her with.

Freckle squirmed uncomfortably for a few seconds.

“I-I um… I just … Wanted to thank you?”

Good lord.

Freckle couldn’t even get out a sentence without stammering and didn’t even have the assurance in herself to say that she wanted to thank someone without turning it into a question.

Victoria frowned and considered her options.

She did not consider herself to be mean. She was direct and blunt, but the world needed more of that and less of bullshit language.

But she definitely was not going to be seen associating with this autonomous collection of freckles.

Not with those clothes.

Not with that stammer.

A compromise came to mind.

“Fine. You’re welcome. We’re _not_ friends, though.”

Victoria kept her tone flat and unfeeling.

“Oh. O-okay.”

Freckle turned to face the front of the class again.

Good girl.

That was exactly the response Victoria was looking for.

Victoria looked to the front of the class as well.

She smiled.

The teacher had put up an outline for a lecture on a topic she already knew.

Of course she already knew it.

She was going to breeze through this.

 

Victoria _did_ breeze through her first class of photography. It’s like she knew everything the teacher was going to say in advance. She had answers for every single question he had.

He was impressed.

He should be.

She had less astonishing success in the rest of her morning classes. They were all math and science related, and while she was no Einstein, she knew how to work with numbers to do what she needed to get through them.

It may have helped how much time her father spent with her in middle school drilling into her how all of the various kinds of math worked. She didn’t grow up with an association of math being hard or unpleasant. She wasn’t homeschooled; he didn’t care.

It was now lunch and she knew it was going to be painful since she didn’t have any of her friends from her first year in _any_ of her classes so far and wasn’t able to coordinate anything.

Whatever. She got her food and found some of them chatting pleasantly anyway.

With a bunch of faces she didn’t recognize. She ended up sitting next to one such face.

Almost as soon as she sat down, no-name started to _squeal_ and Victoria grimaced.

“Oh my _god_ is that the Mark Avon line?”

It wasn’t.

Victoria gritted her teeth. She knew exactly where this was going.

No-face here was _trying_ to dress herself well and clearly had some money to work with, but her clothes were more than a few seasons out-of-date, now. Victoria wouldn’t be caught dead in them no matter how elaborate her tests became.

She wasn’t a fucking hobo or something.

But she knew the right words to say here to make squealer happy.

“Yes. How did you know?”

No-name’s face split wide into a huge, shit-eating grin.

“I _love_ fashion!”

She then frowned.

“But no one here does. Unlike you. You clearly know what you’re doing. We should be friends. I need some who I can talk to about this stuff. I’m Becky.”

Victoria hummed pleasantly.

She did not want to spend another second talking to this girl.

Brittney, Becky, Bimmy, whatever, had already failed one of her tests and was well on her way to failing another.

All this girl recognized was that Victoria dressed _expensively_.

She just used the most expensive brand that came to her mind.

All of Avon’s stuff was just over-priced garbage. Victoria wouldn’t wear a single piece of fabric he touched.

Asshole would do things like charge a thousand dollars for a plain white tee shirt.

No-face here wasn’t someone that Victoria could really call a friend.

This was another dirty leech.

But she knew the right words to say here.

“I _suppose_ so. We’ll exchange numbers later. You’ll tell me what you care of Mr. Avon’s work.”

Squealer squealed again.

Victoria grimaced again.

This was already painful and she just fucking sat down.

The sycophant was then distracted by someone else sitting at the table.

Good.

Victoria just wanted to stare at her food miserably for a little while.

She did eventually start to eat, but she had little words to offer the others.

It was all just rote exchanges she had memorized long ago. Ultimately meaningless.

Someone could replace her with a fucking robot and these chuckleheads wouldn’t be any the wiser.

Is that really what she wanted?

To be around people who were only happy that she was here because of how expensive her clothes were?

To talk in such an uninspired fashion about such vapid things that she could fucking memorize a script and be totally prepared?

No.

It wasn’t.

Victoria finished her damn food.

 

She was miserable all throughout her next class.

She was in a sea of sycophants and losers.

Was she the freak, here?

Did Blammy’s interests really begin and end at fashion?

Is that all she did in her free time? Is that all she talked about with others?

Were all of her other friends like that, too?

Did the jocks only care about their sports?

Was it impossible for someone to have varied, multi-dimensional interests like Victoria had and still dress themselves competently?

Or was this an Emperor’s New Clothes kind of situation?

Did no one want to say that they liked anime, or really didn’t want to talk about the latest celebrity gossip, out of fear of being ostracized?

Even if everyone else felt the same way?

This fucking chess game was too complicated sometimes.

Before class ended, she found that damn planner her father gave her.

She wrote down just one goal.

_Make a real friend._

She wrote it in a real damn pen and underlined it a few damn times.

She then put her damn planner away and just tried to pay attention to the damn class.

It’d be more interesting this nonsense about her stupid social group.

She hoped.

 

Her last class of the day was music.

Victoria wasn’t great at music. Really, any part of it.

She could imitate voices, but she was utterly tone-deaf.

This annoyed her.

But she didn’t make a habit of singing much in public, anyway, so it ultimately didn’t matter.

Freckle walked into the music room after Victoria did.

She was in this class too, somehow. Coincidence of scheduling, probably.

Wait, this class wasn’t for freshmen.

Could Freckle be a sophomore?

Victoria would have recognized her if she’d been around the campus for a whole year.

She was awful with names but she’d fucking remember those freckles.

Did Freckle test out of the freshman course?

The more Victoria thought about it, the more questions she had.

Freckle had a guitar.

Why?

Victoria furrowed her brow.

This wasn’t a course for people to play music along with the teacher. It was some bullshit theory class.

Whatever. Victoria would manage to pass this just fine, too.

She would ace it, even.

Her being tone-deaf wasn’t going to matter.

Her imperfections never got in the way of her academic success.

Her imperfections didn’t matter.

Freckle sat down next to the teacher and still kept her guitar.

She looked so happy with it.

Victoria hardly even recognized her when she wasn’t looking down at the ground the entire time. Without her jacket on, Victoria could see she had good skin to work with, too.

She could do with showing off some more.

As the class started and progressed, Victoria noticed more things about Freckle.

She had an utterly endearing look of concentration when she was trying to figure out how to play something.

She looked so at ease at the world when she got into a groove.

She had a really cute laugh.

Whenever she’d smile her cheeks would do this adorable thing of making her freckles dance around.

Her eyes stood out so much more when she was smiling and happy.

Freckle had a really good face for ---

Victoria’s eyes widened suddenly.

Her thoughts came to a screeching halt.

The realization hit her like a fucking bus.

_Nonono no no no. No. No. No. No!_

But it was too late.

Victoria spent the entire rest of the class screaming internally.

This was definitely a crush.

That’s definitely the thoughts you have when you have a crush on someone.

Her first fucking crush.

Victoria had a crush on the lamest looser in the entire school.

As her first fucking crush.

What a fucking joke.

She goes all through middle school and her first year of high school just _full_ of exceptionally attractive people and this is her first crush.

For a while she thought she was asexual or something.

But no, she’s not, she’s apparently a lesbian, and her crush is for some loser who can hardly dress herself and is nervous all of the time.

She hardly even fucking wore makeup.

And it’s a gay crush too, Jesus Christ.

Couldn’t she be normal for once about _something_?

At least if she was asexual or something she could marry some fucking Ken doll and live a comfortable lie of a life. Victoria was the fucking queen of putting on airs and she could easily live her life like that if it was more comfortable.

 

Victoria didn’t hear a word the teacher said.

She did hear every note Freckle played, though.

They were nice. She definitely knew how to play guitar.

Victoria wanted to hear her play it more often.

And she knew how much that thought was _already_ dooming her.

 

After class, Victoria made sure to stop Freckle in the hall way.

She had to know. About the guitar.

Freckle was still smiling. She was able to keep eye contact this time.

God her eyes were pretty when she smiled.

Proximity was definitely not fucking helping.

“Why do you have that guitar in this class?”

Victoria kept her tone light, but there was still a certain edge and harshness to her words.

Plus, she had bitchy resting face and she didn’t care if the entire world knew it.

Freckle frowned slightly. She hesitated for a few seconds.

Victoria figured she was probably trying to determine how much to tell her.

But Victoria _did_ help her earlier, so Freckle had no reason to shut Victoria down, now.

“I’m… I’ve been playing music for a while now. I offered to help play along with the teacher for extra credit. He accepted happily.”

Victoria blinked.

That was ambitious and bold.

Since when did this loser have either of those things?

Her teacher could have very easily turned her down and gotten annoyed that she thought she was special. It could have made her entire semester awkward.

Victoria admired ambitious people who could take risks. None of her friends could dream.

Freckle here hardly even stammered or tripped over her words that time. She said it more loudly. Confidently.

But Victoria remembered herself again and crossed her arms.

She had something far more eloquent _planned_ , but all that came out was an accusative,

“ _You_?”

To which Freckle simply nodded.

“I’m not …”

Freckle sighed and hesitated, a bit frustrated for words. She looked to the ceiling for a few seconds but didn’t find anything on there to help her, and came back to looking at Victoria, soon.

“I’m not always a loser, okay? I just get … nervous … or something. I don’t know. But I know music. I’m not an idiot there. I know what I’m doing.”

Victoria frowned for a few seconds and just processed the words.

There was still much more ease in Freckle’s words than what Victoria saw in photography class. Freckle’s entire personality seemed shifted when she could just believe that she knew what she was doing. It reminded Victoria of someone she didn’t want to be reminded of.

It was also fucking endearing and corny as all hell and Victoria hated every bit of it.

Freckle shifted uncomfortably.

“Look, I ---“

Victoria moved a hand over to place right on the other girl’s lips to hush her.

Freckle’s face contorted. Her freckles danced some more.

Victoria made a mental note to do this more often.

“Shh. That’s … nice. Really.”

Victoria wanted her tone to actually indicate it _was_ nice, but even when she said it as flatly as she possibly could it still sounded sarcastic.

Maybe that’s just because her ears were trained to hear sarcasm.

But Freckle seemed to understand.

Both of their frowns went away.

Freckle went back to smiling gently.

Victoria went back to being a stone.

“T-thanks.”

Victoria was pretty sure she saw a blush. Freckle didn’t give her time to process.

“But I … I really should get going now. I need to put this ---“

She raised her guitar up,

“--- away. It was … nice talking to you, though. We’ll talk later?”

Victoria nodded.

“We’ll see, with the …”

Victoria paused dramatically, gesturing in front of herself with one of her hands,

“… _friends_ , you’ve already made in photography class.”

Freckle flinched and nodded as well, before slinging her guitar on her back and walking away.

She gave a little wave just before she went out of sight.

When she rounded the corner, Victoria pressed her back against a nearby wall and sighed severely.

Her hand came up to rub at her temples.

This fucking chess game just got even more complicated.

Did this actually make her a lesbian now? Is that how this worked?

Could she still be straight or whatever and still have a gay crush?

Maybe it only counted if she acted on it.

Maybe this was a normal part of growing up.

Maybe everyone was just a little bit gay.

Victoria was lying to herself again and she fucking knew it again.

 

After she was driven home by her dad, who was mercifully quiet the entire time, she stormed into her room and tossed her bag onto her bed.

The stupid planner peeked out from it because of course it did.

She crossed her arms.

She looked away.

She tapped her feet.

Like it would fucking make it go away if she just simmered about this whole situation aggressively enough.

But it didn’t go away.

She just had to sigh, quietly close her door, and make her way over to the bed to collapse on it.

She groaned as she picked up the planner and opened it.

Her goal was still right there.

_Make a real friend._

She traced over the letters with a finger.

She could feel how much pressure she had applied when she angrily wrote it earlier in the day.

And she thought about all of what had happened today.

Freckle was cute when she wasn’t a nervous ball of anxiety.

Victoria didn’t know if they shared any interests. The photography class had a bunch of know-nothings in it who would only take a photography class once and never touch a camera again.

They didn’t share any other classes.

But at least music class wasn’t going to be fucking boring with her in it.

Freckle clearly didn’t care about fashion or appearing presentable in public, but she had a dork charm to her all of her own. She just needed a little guidance.

And she certainly wouldn’t have any motivations to play the Emperor’s New Clothes Game of Popularity around Victoria.

They might actually be able to make a meaningful connection here.

Maybe Victoria would learn she actually had a thing for music with Freckle here being so energetic about it. Beethoven was deaf-deaf, wasn’t he? Victoria could deal with being just tone-deaf.

Victoria always told herself that she was actually a good, nice person. Just no one really deserved that side of her. She was just surrounded by losers, sycophants, bitches, and assholes. She’d forget their names a year or two from now.

She easily had the political sway to deal with anyone who bullied Freckle.

If Freckle wore her hair a bit longer and did something with those dreadful clothes there might be a presentable, maybe even attractive, woman living underneath there.

Victoria didn’t know what she could do with that self-esteem problem, though. In a way, it reminded her of herself when she was younger.

If Victoria played her cards right she might not even need to spend any capital. Maybe Freckle could be more than a loser with just a little bit of encouragement.

Then she’d have every reason to be open with Victoria about whatever. Victoria could finally talk to fucking _someone_ about these fucking sycophants. She could finally have _some_ kind of vent.

The crush thing helped, too.

But the thought overall still didn’t sit right with her.

Her friends would be, at best, severely scandalized, by her appearing to any degree around Freckle. Particularly protecting and helping her like that.

Her crush was just clouding her thoughts. Hormones or something.

For fuck’s sake she ignored when Freckle’s name was called in roll call _twice_ and still didn’t know it.

She’d sleep on it and think about it some more.

Maybe over the weekend, when she wouldn’t have exposure to Freckle for a while and wouldn’t have to think about the way her eyes shimmered and her cheeks dimpled ever so slightly.

She groaned.

 _Fuck,_ was she screwed.

This was bad.

She put an arm over her eyes and just melted into her bed.

Her dad opened her door sometime later – without knocking, since, “I own the damn house” – and smiled gently.

He still had on a full suit.

He always wore a suit.

It was fucking weird sometimes.

“Did you see my note?”

Victoria grunted flatly. She didn’t move a muscle.

“Your mother tells me that you mean ‘yes’, in English. Did you make a goal yet?”

Victoria sighed. Her dad would become increasingly annoyed if she didn’t use her words.

She carefully peeled her arm away to look towards her dad from the bed.

“Yes.”

She raised the planner so that he could at least make out she wrote something down before letting it and her arm fall back down onto the bed.

He smiled wider.

“That’s what I like to hear. Did you make any progress towards it today?”

Victoria thought about it for a little while.

“Yes.”


	2. Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max talks to Victoria about photography.
> 
> Max cries.
> 
> Victoria has a new goal.
> 
> Victoria does something dramatic.

Max knew today was Friday.

She knew it because she made absolutely certain to wake up early this time and _not_ end up getting bullied for arriving too late.

That had happened a few times now and she always noticed that the bullies came in right when class was starting.

So her plan was to appear in all of her classes way before anyone else did and just sit pleasantly and quietly and hope no one noticed her.

She was good at making herself small and unnoticeable. She dressed blandly and inoffensively. She didn’t do anything special with her hair or wear pretty much any makeup. She didn’t wear jewelry. She didn’t want to be noticed.

It was pathetic, and she knew it was, but she didn’t feel like she had any choice in the matter.

Just thinking of saying something to those bullies was an overwhelming thought. It choked off her words _now_ and they weren’t even prowling right over her.

She was hopeless.

She made it into her photography class without issue this time.

It had to have been a good ten minutes before class would start when she quietly closed the door behind her.

Someone else was already here.

Victoria.

Max stopped in her tracks.

She made extra sure to pay attention to what Victoria’s name was when roll call was roll called these past few days.

Victoria Chase.

Victoria was sitting on the far side of class, clicking through the photos on her camera. It was one of those fancy ones, Max knew, but her mind provided her with no more details past that.

So far, Victoria was the only person who had been any semblance of outwardly nice to Max.

However, that niceness was guarded and reserved.

On Monday, Victoria had made it clear that they weren’t going to be friends.

The rest of the week Victoria wasn’t … terrible, to her. It’s not like she was going out of her way to stop anyone from picking on Max, but she didn’t seem to mind whenever Max sat next to her in classes.

That was different, to some degree. Most of the other kids didn’t want to socialize much with the awkward new girl.

Victoria was still very short with her and sounded angry all of the time, but at least they could talk.

Maybe Victoria was different.

Maybe.

It could be pity.

It was probably some stupid game the popular kids played.

She’d get her hopes up that at least _someone_ wasn’t going to be entirely miserable to the new kid from Arcadia, and then right when she lets her guard down, the rug is pulled out from underneath her.

She would get punk’d.

She would be humiliated.

Her life would get that much worse.

Everyone would know even more than now how awful she was at socializing.

She could hear the cackling of the bullying hyenas already.

_Ha ha, Lamefield thought Victoria was her friend!_

But she was doing that thing again. Just spacing out, not really doing much.

People bullied her for that, too.

Victoria noticed.

“ _Um_ , staring, much?”

Victoria’s tone was sharp, but it kind of always was, even when she was trying to be nice.

Max wondered if it was some kind of defensive mechanism.

She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing quite came out.

She didn’t have the words.

Not to a direct question like that.

Not now.

Max lowered her head and shuffled towards the seat in front of Victoria.

They weren’t friends, but they weren’t enemies either.

Max wasn’t sure what they were.

Maybe it didn’t matter. It was enough to have someone who didn’t obviously hate her guts.

“S-sorry. I just … think, a lot, sometimes.”

Max had her body slightly shifted so that she was facing Victoria.

She couldn’t look directly at her but she was getting good at seeing people’s faces and their expressions without directly looking at them.

And she knew what she saw.

A frown.

Max got a little bit more nervous. She could never really tell when Victoria’s frowns were intentional or not. Victoria would do it sometimes when thinking.

“I-I wasn’t staring. I promise.”

Max tried so very hard to calm the jitter in her voice, but just couldn’t.

Not with that glare on Victoria’s face.

Not with this conversation only occurring out of her annoying Victoria.

Victoria pursed her lips into a fine line, but seemed to find this acceptable.

“Fine.”

There was silence, then.

It was awkward and thick.

Max didn’t know what to say to fill the void.

She envied people who could make small talk, easily.

It’s probably how they made friends.

Max had only one real friend, but she was back in Arcadia, now.

They hadn’t talked in a few days, now. Max had just been so busy with the move and her classes.

Her friend was too energetic for something like photography, anyway. There’s no way she’d have the patience to do something like nature shots.

“ _What_?”

There’s that irritated tone again in Victoria’s voice.

Max flinched.

Shit, Max was doing that thinking thing again.

She was still pointed to Victoria and probably looked like she still wanted to talk, despite being a loser who couldn’t string a sentence together.

_Say something, Max._

“I just ---“

Max sighed heavily. She couldn’t find any political way to phrase it.

But there was no one around to judge her if she gave an honest response.

Just Victoria. And if Victoria didn’t take it well, then Max would know where they stood.

Sometimes, being honest was the only way Max could find the right words to use. As bad as she was at communicating in general, she was even worse at lying.

“You’re the only person who has been nice to me here and now --- a-and I know, we’re not friends, but, I just …”

She frowned.

“I don’t want to be enemies, either, please.”

Another very heavy period of silence.

Max could feel it weighing down on her shoulders.

Victoria’s face was a stone. Judging her. Crushing her with the weight of Victoria’s gaze.

Probably about to humiliate her for this vulnerability.

She slowly started to slink down and more into herself.

This was a mistake.

She said the wrong thing.

She should have stayed far away from Victoria.

Being nice was just a freak accident.

A coincidence.

She didn’t really –

“Stop that.”

Max blinked. She looked up, wearing her confusion openly.

Victoria’s expression was entirely blank.

Max couldn’t figure it out _at all_ and it frustrated her.

People were always a little opaque but Victoria was in a league of her own.

“What?”

“Stop what you’re doing. You’re beating yourself up.”

Max frowned.

_How the hell did she know that?_

Max felt defensive and hugged at herself.

“What do you care?”

Victoria bit her lip. She closed her eyes for a few moments.

Then she sighed severely and opened her eyes back up.

“Look, I know what you’re going through. Just trust me, alright?”

Max considered Victoria’s words.

Was Victoria uncool at some point?

Was this an oblique way to say they were kindred?

Or was this more bait to get her to believe that Victoria could actually be her friend?

Victoria didn’t give her time to entertain her thoughts much further.

“You’re here early. You like photography, right?”

Max nodded weakly.

“And you’ve taken photos, right? They’re with you, right now?”

Max nodded again.

Victoria crossed her arms.

“So here’s what you do today. You’ll find someone. You’ll sit your ass down right next to them. You’re going to say hi and exchange names. You’re going to pull out some of your pictures and you’re going to trade. It doesn’t matter what their photos look like. Say they’re nice anyway. Find something detailed to compliment so they don’t think you’re bullshitting. Then you have a friend in the class. That easy.”

Max opened her mouth to say something.

Nothing came out again.

Her arms slowly fell down to her sides.

Could it really be that easy to make friends?

Max considered how it could play out in her mind.

She was really self-conscious about her photos, but, she figured so were the other kids in the class. Sharing them would make them both feel better about it.

Worst case is she’d find a snob or an asshole and then she’d learn not to bother with them.

This could work.

Max’s mind turned to Victoria.

Why was Victoria being so nice to her?

This felt like pity now.

Victoria was just feeling pity because Max looked pathetic and miserable when she got into her self-conscious periods.

This wasn’t friendship. She said so.

Victoria didn’t care.

She just didn’t have anything else to do and Max being miserable or sobbing in front of her would be distracting.

The pity party would end, eventually.

Victoria helping her like this was just some kind of game. Somehow. Max didn’t quite understand it, but she knew this was less-than-genuine. Somehow.

Victoria continued.

“And you’ll start … with me.”

Max’s eyes widened.

Victoria had a way of knocking Max out of her thoughts, sometimes.

* * *

Victoria stormed out of photography class the second she could get away from it.

Fucking Max Caulfield – she knew Freckle’s name, now – was some bullshit little hipster who shot on a bullshit little ancient camera and didn’t know her exposure from her aperture and _still_ she took great, interesting shots.

Victoria was jealous as fuck.

And she didn’t want to talk to her about it, now.

_Oh your shots are so pretty, Victoria. Oh I wish I could frame things like you do, Victoria._

Max was definitely fucking taunting her.

Max _knew_ her shots were better and she _knew_ she managed that without a super expensive camera.

Victoria didn’t want to talk to _anyone_ about this, now.

It wasn’t fair.

Nothing was fair.

Victoria tried so hard to be perfect, to do everything right.

She _did_ do everything right.

But this little bullshit loser just hopped and skipped through life with a nervous stammer and lucked her way into amazing eyes and wonderful photos.

She didn’t even know how to fucking introduce herself as a photographer to someone.

She was amazing at guitar.

She was amazing at taking photos.

She could look amazing if she just fucking tried.

She could cultivate that dorky charm of hers into something like charisma if she just fucking tried.

But she didn’t, and it pissed Victoria off to no end.

Victoria went into one of the girls’ bathrooms and quietly stewed in one of the stalls.

This was not fucking happening.

This wasn’t fair.

 

She then sighed deeply.

She tried to calm herself down.

Her anger was one of the emotions that was capable of effortlessly sailing through her emotionally-void mask and she did _not_ like people reading her emotions.

It’s why she came in here in the first place. So she’d have some peace and quiet where she could stew and eventually recompose herself. Sometimes she had to break herself apart before she could stitch her emotional mask back together.

She pulled out her planner and burned goddamn holes into it with her eyes.

The goal wasn’t going anywhere.

It was still right where it was when she wrote it down on Monday.

She traced it with her fingers for a minute or so.

She then sighed again and slumped a little on the toilet.

Max had opened up to her.

She had exposed some vulnerability.

Max wasn’t trying to upset Victoria.

She didn’t know all of the effort Victoria put into being who she was.

And how much Max threatened all of her with her ability to just luck through it.

Really, being upset at her was the worst fucking thing to do right now.

The most unfair thing.

She wasn’t ever going to forget those fucking words she said.

Or that desolate look.

They’d be burned into her memory until the end of time.

_You’re the only one who has been nice to me, here._

Victoria grumbled and put her planner back into her bag.

This _fucking_ empathy.

No one around Victoria deserved her kindness.

Except Max.

Victoria put her hands up to about her cheekbones and eyes. She gingerly rubbed along there with her middle fingers and just slumped forward.

She sat there for a while.

She didn’t care if she missed her next period, really.

It was some bullshit she could walk through in her sleep.

No one interesting was in the class.

After a while, she just stared at the boring green paint of the stalls with her hands gently folded in front of her lips.

Deep in thought.

She was interrupted by someone storming into the bathroom and crying despondently.

Victoria frowned.

Bitch didn’t even have the decency to take one of the stalls.

This was going to interrupt her stewing.

This couldn’t do.

Victoria stood up and opened her stall, about to unload on whatever poor idiot decided to interrupt her.

Who the _fuck_ was ---

Max.

Instead, she stopped dead.

_Fuck._

Victoria felt the anger drain right out of her.

She couldn’t be mad at Max.

Not now.

Not while she knew _exactly_ what she was going through.

Not when she had this _fucking_ empathy to deal with.

Or this goddamn crush.

“Max …”

Victoria’s voice came out far softer than she expected it to.

It caught them both off guard.

Max sniffled and looked up. Her hands were still on either side of the sink she had just finished sobbing into.

She looked at Victoria through the mirror. Her eyes were red and puffy.

She didn’t just start crying a few seconds ago. She had to have been crying the entire way here. Big crocodile tears.

Victoria frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

Max looked down again.

She didn’t say anything.

Victoria bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes.

This was awful.

As unfair as everything was to Victoria, she wasn’t ever bullied like that.

Max had some bullshit luck going on, but she didn’t deserve to be bullied.

 

Victoria was suddenly resolved to fix this.

Fuck it. Her crush definitely hadn’t gotten any easier to deal with over this week and Max wasn’t getting any better at dealing with these other assholes.

Victoria turned on her heel – the like _one_ thing she’d learned from her year of ROTC – and fished out her day planner again. She tore off a little piece of paper.

She wrote down her number on it.

She tore off another piece and took her pen with her.

She marched right back over to Max, put her hand on her shoulder, and pulled so as to turn Max around.

Max complied, but she immediately looked down to the floor, miserably.

She couldn’t meet Victoria’s eyes right now.

Her body was slumped. She looked like she would fall right into Victoria if she let go.

“Max.”

Victoria kept her voice quiet and soft. She was looking down, like Max, at her hands.

There was a certain intimacy to this distance, now. She was only a few inches away from Max’s forehead and hair, though she had more than a few inches of Max and easily stood clear over her.

The hand that was on Max’s shoulder reached down to grab at one of Max’s hands. She put the piece of paper with her number in it and closed Max’s hand for her.

“This is my number. You are calling me tonight at 8pm sharp. We are talking about this.”

Max sniffled.

“And you’re writing your number down on this so I know who’s calling me.”

Victoria put the other piece in Max’s other hand with the pen.

“Got it?”

Max did nothing.

Victoria squeezed one of Max’s clamped hands.

After what felt like forever, Max quietly turned around, diligently wrote her number down, and gave it with the pen back to Victoria.

She was a goddamn zombie right now and it made Victoria’s heart heavier than it had been in a long time.

Victoria stuffed the paper and pen into her pocket thoughtlessly.

Her eyes didn’t leave Max for a second.

“Are you okay?”

Victoria’s voice was a bit louder this time. She tried to hide the concern she was feeling more out of instinct than any intentional effort.

Max sniffled again.

She hesitated on a response.

Eventually,

“No.”

After another agonizing period, she slowly raised her face up to look at Victoria.

“But… I think I’ll get better.”

Max smiled softly. She sniffled, but still. That counted.

Victoria smiled too, for a few seconds.

But then she remembered herself.

Victoria’s face slid back into its comfortable position of emotional void.

Her cheeks would hurt if she smiled for too long.

“Good. Remember. 8 o’clock. _Sharp_. Not a _second_ later.”

She found the sharpness in her voice again. It was comfortable.

She turned on her heel again and collected her bag.

She was halfway out of the bathroom before she heard Max’s voice.

Max had to know.

“W-wait … why … why are you being so nice to me?”

The words gave Victoria pause.

She closed her eyes and sighed.

Victoria didn’t know why.

She didn’t care how much of an obvious lie that was to herself, this time.

Because it was comfortable to lie to herself about this.

“Because that’s what friends do.”

And she made her way out of the bathroom.

She felt better, now.

She’d missed a good chunk of her period but whatever. She came up with some bullshit that the teacher found acceptable.

Victoria would only realize much later the same paper that she extracted the pieces from

Was the same one she wrote her goal down on, earlier.

It was symbolic, probably maybe definitely.

_Make a real friend._

Max sent her a happy text, later.

It had too many emojis in it.

But it was nice.

Victoria wasn’t going to delete it anytime soon.

 

Victoria ensured she would have all of the peace and quiet she wanted when it was nearly 8pm.

Her room couldn’t be trusted, exactly. Her door had a lock on it but it was one of those bullshit locks that you could easily undo with a key sitting above the door frame.

It didn’t feel private enough, sometimes.

But they had a huge garden along the back of their property and it was full of pleasant places to sit down and just relax.

It was a little chilly this time of the year at night, but whatever.

Victoria ran her fingers over the back of her phone while she looked at the night sky from her sitting position.

It was a really clear night. She wondered if she could get a picture of the way the stars looked right now if she played with the exposure just so.

Her phone rang. She answered it without even looking at who was calling.

She knew who it was.

“Max.”

“What?”

She didn’t know who it was.

Victoria blinked. That was definitely her dad’s voice.

 _Shit_.

“Who is Max?”

Victoria bit her bottom lip.

She didn’t have a good lie ready for this. This totally caught her off-guard.

Her mind was racing and just the first thing that made it across the finish line came out first.

“Nobody, nothing. I just read the caller ID wrong.”

Her father didn’t buy it for a second.

He shouldn’t have, that was a fucking terrible dodge.

“Listen, young lady, first you’re gone all afternoon and now you’re waiting on phone calls from strange boys?”

She groaned.

This was a thing. Her parents liked to know about all of her friends.

They didn’t, but they liked to think they did.

But her brain had recovered more now from the unexpected surprise.

And she knew what her father wanted to hear.

About Victoria’s friends.

About everything, really.

“Dad. _She’s” –_ Victoria really leaned in on the emphasis – “just a new friend. She just wanted to talk tonight about some the classes we have together. I just like to have some friends to myself, you know? Not everyone can deal with the full Chase Family experience right off the bat.”

He exhaled deeply into his phone’s receiver.

It _was_ what he wanted to hear and she knew it.

“Alright. _Fine_. Dinner’s ready. Please come eat.”

Victoria sighed.

“Okay. Luvubye.”

She hung up her phone.

And then proceeded to burn holes into it with her eyes when she looked at the screen.

_3 missed calls, Max (8:02pm)_

Fucking …

This anger was fleeting but it was nonetheless intoxicating.

She tossed her phone to nowhere in particular.

She then groaned loudly to the heavens and closed her eyes tightly.

Just perfect.

Just fucking perfect.

Her dad calls her for all of two minutes and it was enough to fuck up the plans she had with Max.

After she had a minute to calm herself down and collect herself, she carefully stood up and found her phone again.

Thankfully it landed on grass and hadn’t been damaged at all.

Dinner could wait for Max.

She tried to call back.

But Max had turned off her phone and it went straight to voice mail.

Victoria’s anger flared again and she almost tossed her phone once more.

But she thought better of it, this time.

This situation was already kind of fucked but leaving a voice mail that consisted nothing of an angry expletive and the sound of the phone being thrown would have been _the least_ useful thing she could do.

So instead, she just rubbed at her forehead hard enough to give herself premature wrinkles while she spoke.

She tried to make her voice as soft as she could since if any anger seeped into it, it would only make things worse.

“Hey-hi, Max, It’s Victoria. My dad wanted to talk really quickly and he’s not too patient sometimes. Please call me back, okay? Thanks.”

She closed her eyes and just tried to relax. Her other hand with the phone wrapped around her belly. The elbow from the rubbing hand rested on that.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed when her phone rang again.

This time, she checked the caller ID before answering.

Her dad.

8:15pm.

She frowned.

She let the call go to voice mail, put her phone back into her pocket, and made her way back into her house to get her damn dinner.

She wasn’t going to be happy about it, though.

Dinner was tense.

She glared at absolutely everything and anything. The damn food, her damn dad, the damn floor, whatever.

Her dad noticed. He couldn’t really engage in much conversation. He looked miserably at his food a few times. When he was finished, he only sighed and got up wordlessly to clean off his plate.

Good.

Her dad could fucking deal with her being a little pissed-off if he just fucked up her relationship with Max.

* * *

Max really shouldn’t have been surprised.

Victoria’s con was a longer one but that just made it all the more painful when it paid off.

It’d be all the more satisfying to her and her awful friends.

Victoria left a pleasant-enough voicemail in response, but Max didn’t believe it.

Not for one goddamn second.

Victoria was a smooth-as-silk liar and knew exactly what she _should_ say to make everything better.

It wasn’t genuine.

This was just going to be some kind of fucked-up cycle.

Something abusive.

Victoria would be mean to her, apologize, and Max, like the little social idiot she was, would just accept it and not see the bigger picture.

Not this time.

She put Victoria’s number on block.

She knew this was a pity party.

The timing of it ending was just too perfect.

She really was all alone in Seattle.

 

Her weekend sucked.

Max wasn’t even entirely confident she wasn’t over-reacting.

Victoria _still_ was the only one who had given a raw fuck about her.

On Monday, she told her parents she wasn’t feeling all that good and wanted to just rest some more.

They obliged her.

Maybe on Tuesday she would talk with Victoria – in person – and see if the game really was up or this was just a simple misunderstanding.

But she was feeling too miserable, now.

Victoria couldn’t keep seeing her like this.

If they _were_ going to be friends, it couldn’t just be Victoria constantly helping her out of pity.

That wasn’t friendship.

She didn’t know what it made them, but she knew what friendship was.

Max looked at Chloe’s number sitting in her phone.

She didn’t dial it.

Max didn’t really know why.

Maybe she wanted to feel miserable for now.

* * *

Victoria spent all of her Monday morning photography class staring at the empty desk where Max _should_ have been.

This was bad.

This was really bad.

Max wasn’t answering her calls, or texts, or anything.

And Victoria was pretty sure she knew why.

She’d only spent most of her fucking weekend hyper-analyzing everything she’d done with Max so far and how Victoria had acted in every single situation.

Max thought Victoria was just playing her like a fiddle.

That she wasn’t a genuine friend.

That this was just a one-sided affair.

This was her bullshit self-esteem popping up again. Victoria had tried to engage in her when she was in a particularly low period and should have expected it wouldn’t be _this_ easy.

Victoria sighed severely.

Max had every reason to believe that.

Victoria would have thought the same exact things.

She _did_ think the same exact things, during her first years of middle school.

That left so long ago now.

Victoria hadn’t really been all that nice to her.

Just the bare minimum she could get away with and whatever her fucking empathy guilted her into doing.

She thought the 8 o’clock conversation would be a good way to segue into something a bit more balanced. After Max had dumped her burden, Victoria would talk about some of her own things and they’d get to relate over shared anxieties or something.

Relating would calm them both down. A weight shared is a weight halved.

But that’s not what happened.

That’s not what fucking happened at all.

Victoria needed Max’s trust that this was all something she actually wanted if this was going to work.

If she was going to become a real friend and confidant.

Well.

There was goal number two.

 _Earn Max’s trust_.

 

Victoria didn’t see Max during music class either and was now _officially_ worried that she had fucked this up for good.

She _still_ didn’t hear a damn word her music teacher had.

It probably wasn’t a good sign.

She spent all period scheming on how to show Max that she wasn’t playing some kind of fucked-up game.

Eventually, she had a dramatic idea.

Victoria always liked her dramatic ideas.

 

That afternoon, she found the Caulfields in the phonebook.

It took her a while since who the fuck still used these things but she managed.

She dialed the number. Max’s parents would probably pick it up.

She could deal with parents.

A woman’s voice answered the line.

Didn’t sound old enough to be a nanny or grandmother. Had to have been Max’s mother.

“Oh, hello?”

Victoria put on her best, warmest voice.

She always did when talking to new adults.

“Hi there, Mrs. Caulfield? Max’s mother?”

“Yes, speaking.”

“Hi, I’m Victoria. I’m one of Max’s –“

Victoria hesitated for a second,

“– friends. She wasn’t in class today. She’s not answering her phone, either. Did you know about that?”

She heard a thoughtful hum on the other end of the line.

“Oh, yes, of course. She wasn’t feeling very good today, and has been sleeping a lot. That’s probably why she wasn’t answering her phone, either.”

Victoria bit her bottom lip so hard she thought it would bleed.

An old part of her that she _thought_ she had sealed away for good picked a horrible time to crop back up.

_Your fault._

Victoria tried her best to ignore it, for now.

She had a fucking plan to do.

“Can I come over and deliver some homework? I haven’t visited before so I’ll need your address but it would be just the – _worst --_ if Max fell behind because of her feeling a little under-the-weather.”

_Your fault._

“Oh, certainly!”

Victoria maintained pleasant chat until she had extracted the information she needed.

_Your fault._

She ended the call and put her phone down.

_Your fault._

And just rested miserably on her bed, trying to shield her eyes with her hands like it was going to somehow stop the stupid voice from coming back.

_You did this. Your fault. You never do anything right._

Maybe there was some fucking benefit in reading from a script in all of her social conversations if she’d never feel like _this_ again.

She said she was done with this after middle school.

Apparently not.

 

She took longer than she would have wanted to in order to recover from her episode.

No matter. She still knew what she had to do, and was still motivated to fix this.

If nothing else, then to shut up that fucking voice in her head once and for all.

She could be a real friend to someone.

If she just tried.

She asked her mother to drive her to the Caulfield’s.

She was happy to, of course.

In exchange for some conversation.

“So.”

Victoria grunted.

She was still feeling a little pensive after the phone call she had had with Max’s mother.

“Who’s this we’re driving to? Max’s?”

Victoria’s eyes went wide, but she remembered herself quickly and just frowned instead.

It was surprising enough to get words out of her, at least.

“How do you know Max?”

“Sweetie, your father tells me everything.”

Victoria sighed severely.

“Yes. It’s Max. She’s sick today and I want to deliver some homework.”

Victoria’s mother smiled pleasantly.

“That’s awful nice of you.”

Victoria couldn’t help but a smile a little bit herself.

“Yeah.”

The rest of the car ride was pleasant.

Victoria’s mother didn’t even play obnoxious pop music.

Just for Victoria, she let it ride on the local hip-hop station, and politely bobbed her head along to beats.

Victoria liked her mother.

On average, anyway.

 

Victoria told her mother to drive around the block or something.

She was going to check if Max wanted to hang out afterwards and didn’t know if she’d be up to it.

Victoria’s mother smiled and drove away.

Victoria sighed.

She turned to look at Max’s house.

Obviously, it was no fucking mansion.

Nothing that ostentatious.

But that was fine.

Victoria bet that Max never had to deal with being creeped out by the echo of her own voice.

Victoria made her way to the door and knocked firmly.

Fairly quickly a woman answered the door.

She wore a bright smile.

Victoria wondered where the hell Max’s freckles came from.

This woman sure didn’t have any.

“Oh hello! Victoria, right?”

“Hi. Yes. It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Come in, come in!”

Victoria went inside after being beckoned.

She wasn’t paying attention to many details she saw within.

She was still on a mission, right now.

“You know, it’s so nice of you to come over and do this. We were really worried that Max wouldn’t be able to acclimate ever since the move.”

Mrs. Caulfield started to walk into the kitchen.

Victoria stood patiently in the living room.

There were a lot of family pictures in here.

Victoria lost her thoughts to one of them.

Max looking so happy after she finished unwrapping a guitar-shaped present.

Practically beaming.

It was adorable.

“Water?”

Victoria’s thoughts were interrupted by Mrs. Caulfield returning with a polite glass of water.

Victoria remembered herself and politely accepted the offered water.

She took a sip.

“Thank you. I hear moving can be a traumatic experience.”

Victoria spoke warmly, but not sickeningly so. The content of her words wasn’t appropriate for her usual parent-charming tone.

Mrs. Caulfield frowned, slightly.

She sighed and took a seat on the couch.

“Yes. And Max has spent the better part of the day now, crying.”

Victoria flinched.

_Your fault._

Victoria bit her bottom lip again.

She reminded herself not to do it too harshly.

“You know. You’re the only one who has visited her, so far.”

Mrs. Caulfield hesitated.

Victoria started to chew her lip some more.

Max’s voice was stuck on repeat in her head.

_You’re the only one who has been nice to me, here._

She still wasn’t going to forget that fucking look on her face.

“You’re not actually here to deliver homework, are you?”

_Shit._

Victoria gritted her teeth.

This could go wrong very quickly.

Victoria considered her options.

She could very easily – convincingly – lie that the homework was all she was really here for.

But she could tell that Mrs. Caulfield really cared about her daughter.

It might impress her to know the real reason why Victoria was over here.

It’d be nice to have her on Victoria’s side.

She decided she didn’t really get much benefit in lying to Max’s parents.

So she sighed and put her drink of water down, on one of the coasters on the coffee table in the middle of the living room.

She turned to face Mrs. Caulfield.

“No, I’m not. Not really, anyway. Max hasn’t been answering my calls and it’s worrying me.”

Mrs. Caulfield nodded, slowly.

She smiled.

“I figured.”

Her voice was warm. Victoria said the right thing.

Good. At least something was going right.

Mrs. Caulfield stood up carefully.

“I’ll go tell her you’re here.”

Victoria nodded and smiled pleasantly as Mrs. Caulfield ascended the stairs.

When she was gone, Victoria went back to looking at all of these damn photos.

Victoria tried very hard to not space into one of her memories of middle school.

But she still did anyway, since all of these cutesy family photos were making her wistful.

Mrs. Caulfield came back a few moments later.

She found Victoria with her eyes gently closed, lost in her thoughts.

She cleared her throat.

Victoria came back to reality.

“She’ll see you. It’s the first door on the right, upstairs.”

She hesitated.

“I think she’s still crying. You be nice to her now; you hear? She’s a wonderfully smart and talented girl … I just don’t think she knows it sometimes.”

_You won’t be nice to her. She’s crying because of you._

Victoria nodded and smiled politely again.

“I wouldn’t dream of being mean to Max.”

_You lair._

Victoria was all smiles as she walked up the stairs.

She hesitated at Max’s door.

She could see what Mrs. Caulfield meant. She could hear the crying from here.

_Your fault._

But now was _not the time_ to get lost in her own stupid self-doubt. She steeled herself and opened the door.

Victoria could go her whole life without seeing Max like this again.

She closed the door behind her mostly out of instinct.

Her mind wasn’t really working.

Max looked so devastated.

_Your fault._

Her body was painfully slouched over her bed. She was sitting off of the side of it, wearing little more than a night gown.

Her hands were coving her face. Her elbows were resting on her knees.

She was sobbing pitifully, of course.

Victoria noticed Max’s phone was far away, against the wall opposite her. She wondered if she threw it out of anger or desperation.

Victoria forced her mouth into moving.

“Max …”

Once again, it came out far softer than she was expecting it to.

Max didn’t respond.

 _Your fault_.

Victoria sighed.

She steeled herself to ignore that _fucking_ part of herself and diligently walked over to sit down next to her.

Max still didn’t respond.

Victoria wanted to hug her, or something.

Victoria wasn’t someone who did a lot of hugging.

But Max sure looked like she could use that about now.

Victoria decided against it.

“Max. Please. What’s wrong? You haven’t answered your phone all day long.”

This got a response out of Max.

Eventually, anyway.

Max slowly moved her hands away from her face but wouldn’t look at Victoria.

Her eyes were seriously blood-shot.

She must have been crying for a long time.

Victoria felt terrible.

But her plan wasn’t done yet. She still needed to continue.

Max needed to know.

Max started to speak, sort of. Her voice was so quiet and hushed and hoarse and quick that Victoria could hardly make out the words.

“N-no one likes me. I’m a total loser. Why did I even come to here? Why did my parents fo ---“

Victoria stopped her by placing a finger on her lips.

She knew whatever Max was saying was bullshit.

Max just needed to know it, too.

Max’s face did the same contorting thing again and her freckles danced again and Victoria very hard to ignore that part of herself right now.

She couldn’t get distracted. Max needed her. She needed someone.

In middle school, Victoria’s mother often could only calm her down with physical contact.

They had a very particular position.

Victoria didn’t know if Max would be fine with the physical contact, but she figured if there was ever a point she would be, it would be now.

“Shh. Max. _Here._ ”

Victoria scooted herself down the bed.

She grabbed Max’s shoulders and dragged her down so that Max’s face was looking up in Victoria’s lap.

“Lay down, please.”

Max didn’t resist.

When Victoria’s mother did this, Victoria would lay face down and her mother would brush through Victoria’s hair. It was longer, then.

Victoria really didn’t want to think of Max being face down in her lap, right now, though.

Victoria could see Max shivering.

Max’s hands started to come up, probably to shove Victoria away or something.

This was too much, Victoria had moved too quickly, this was too intimate ---

But some part of her moved faster than her brain did to complete the position.

Victoria’s fingers started to stroke through Max’s hair.

She didn’t have a comb handy like her mother always did, but whatever.

This was fine enough.

It worked.

 

Max calmed down.

They shared a moment where all Victoria did was just look into Max’s eyes and see all of that pain trapped in her blues.

It had to have been several minutes later when Max had recomposed herself enough to form words.

She was still sniffling and crying, her breathing was still uneven.

But she was better.

Victoria was helping.

“W-what, Victoria? What do you want out of me?”

Victoria resisted the urge to bit her lip.

Victoria was right. Max was suspicious. She didn’t trust Victoria’s intentions here.

Victoria had to do this right.

She had to do this so well that Max wouldn’t doubt that ever again.

She steeled herself.

That stupid fucking part of her was awfully quiet now, so that helped.

“You’re not a loser, Max. You just don’t know how to express yourself, yet.”

It was the truth. Max could be so much more if she could show everyone what Victoria saw.

Her photos. Her music. Her passion. Her eyes.

Max bit her lip.

Victoria could tell she was thinking. Considering.

It was now or never.

Victoria engaged the final part of her plan.

“For example… if you don’t care about how you look in public, people will notice, and assume things. We’re going shopping tomorrow. I’m personally picking you out two-week’s worth of clothes.”

Max’s eyes went wide.

She shifted her body around.

She protested.

“I can’t aff---“

But Victoria had anticipated this. She knew exactly that Max would say that.

“I’m buying.”

Max’s breathing hitched. She was stunned.

It was all part of Victoria’s plan and it was working brilliantly.

Time to close the deal.

Max had been vulnerable to Victoria earlier.

Max needed to know that Victoria heard every single word and cared.

And she knew that relating her own personal difficulties with similar anxieties would help to make Max trust that this was genuine and real.

“You have such a beautiful way of seeing things, Max. When you’re around with me, you’re so kind, and gentle, and warm. I’ve never seen pictures like yours before. We just need to show everyone else who you really are.”

Victoria kept her voice gentle and steady.

Max’s voice was still quiet and barely audible but the closer distance helped.

“H-how?”

Victoria closed her eyes and breathed in deeply.

Here goes nothing.

Victoria never told anyone what she was about to tell Max.

Not now, not earlier, not later, not ever.

No one could know that Victoria needed to constantly reassure herself.

But Max.

 “Sometimes you really just need to focus, Max. Sometimes it feels like you’re a million miles away, so deep in your own thoughts that no one can reach you.”

Victoria opened her eyes to look down at Max directly.

“Let me tell you something my dad always used to tell me. Whenever you start feeling your thoughts cascading out of control, I want you to breathe in deep. Focus. Concentrate on what you’re about to say, so you don’t end up stuttering or stammering. When you have your next sentence ready to go, then puff out your chest. Say it loudly so that everyone can hear it. Just do it.”

She smiled.

“And my addendum --- Fuck your insecurities. You can change the world if you believe in yourself, Max.”

Victoria maybe definitely practiced it a few times over the weekend.

Okay, a lot of times. She knew exactly how often she had relied upon her father’s words.

Max had more use for them, now.

Only Victoria could be around to show her what they meant, more directly.

 

Max was silent for a long time.

Victoria could tell she was lost in thought again.

That was okay, this time. Max could have some time to do that.

Eventually,

“D-do you really think that? That I can change the world if I try?”

Victoria nodded.

“C-can I hold your hand?”

Victoria hesitated.

That would _not fucking help_ her stupid crush one little bit.

But Max was so vulnerable right now.

Anything Victoria could do to help.

Even if doomed her a little bit more.

She broke one of her hands away from Max’s hair to find her hand.

It was awkward at first. Victoria had to tell herself to stop stalling and commit to it more than once.

But she got it, eventually.

Their fingers interlocked.

It didn’t feel awkward anymore.

Victoria idly traced her thumb over Max’s hand.

She wasn’t getting any fucking better at dealing with her crush and the way Max’s hand squeezed Victoria’s was not helping one goddamn bit.

“We’ll buy some clothes tonight. Not the whole shebang, but enough to get you through tomorrow. Then, you’re staying with me the entire day, got it? You’ll practice until you can do it. You’ll walk and feel like you own the school before you know it.”

“O-okay. B-but …”

Max trailed off. She closed her eyes.

“Can we just sit here for a while?”

“If you want to.”

Max smiled.

 

They sat there for a long time.

It felt like a long time, anyway. Victoria’s mother probably would have called her by now if it was all that long.

Victoria just looked at the pattern at Max’s wall and relaxed herself.

This position was pretty comfortable.

She could see why her mother did it, now.

Max stopped crying at some point.

Victoria did it.

She helped.

Victoria’s plan worked.

It was a little dramatic, but.

Victoria always had a flair for the dramatic.

Max would get used to it.

Victoria texted her mother to come pick her up.

They had some shopping to do.


	3. Something More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max and Victoria bond.
> 
> Mr. Chase is worried.
> 
> Max takes a picture.
> 
> Chloe is happy.
> 
> Victoria is scared.

Max looked really good in bright, solid colors, Victoria decided.

Max was quiet the entire time Victoria was picking her out an outfit.

That’s okay.

She could be quiet, for now.

She was still recovering from earlier in the day and her eyes still were a bit irritated and raw.

It was a good idea to be honest with Mrs. Caulfield.

She had such a warm, knowing smile as Victoria dragged Max out of her bedroom.

Victoria dragged Max by the hand and didn’t care for one second if anyone saw it.

By the time they made it to the mall, Max was collected enough that she didn’t need the literal hand holding, anymore.

But she looked even worse than she usually did, since they had to hurriedly dress her.

That was okay, too.

Since that’s a problem that Victoria _could_ fix.

Easily.

Victoria quickly found the outfit she wanted for Max.

It wasn’t like she spent a good part of her weekend already doing this anyway, as practice, imagining what would work best.

But even though she definitely did not do that, it was still a breezy process.

After a little bit more window shopping, they decided to go back to Max’s place.

Victoria didn’t really want to deal with introducing Max to her father right now.

Not while he still probably remembered Friday so clearly.

Today was going to be a good day.

* * *

“Honey bunny, where’s Victoria?”

Victoria’s dad didn’t look up from his book.

Victoria’s mother just hummed softly.

“She’s over at Max’s place, I think, dear. That’s where I drove her last.”

He frowned.

“You drove her to somewhere else on family night? You _know_ how rare it is for all three of us to be home for dinner at once.”

She rolled her eyes.

“She was very incessant. She said Max was sick and she was going to drop off some homework.”

He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t look up yet.

“And she’s still there? That must be an awful lot of homework.”

She hesitated, for a few seconds.

“Then I drove them to the mall.”

He looked up from his book to peer at his wife.

That didn’t sound like something you did with a sick person who needed homework delivered to them.

“The _mall_?”

She nodded.

“They bought some things, and then I drove them back to Max’s house. She said that Max’s mother would be able to drive her back home.”

His frown deepened.

He then looked back to his book.

“I worry about that girl sometimes.”

She just continued humming for a little while.

Eventually,

“Well, what did you say at the start of the school year? So long as she keeps her grades up, we’ll lay off?”

After some hesitation, he nodded, carefully.

“I didn’t think that would include her _lying to us_ about whatever is going on with Max and her friends. I’m willing to bet that she didn’t drop off any homework at all.”

He sighed severely.

“I’ve known about this Max girl for all of a few days and I’m already worried about her influence on Victoria.”

Victoria’s mother considered his words.

She bit her tongue.

She decided against telling him about the hand holding and the way Victoria looked at Max during the car ride. Or Max’s disheveled appearance.

He didn’t need to know that, now.

Instead,

“Maybe you should have a talk with her about it if it’s bothering you.”

Victoria could tell him herself. When she was ready to.

He scoffed.

“She won’t talk to me meaningfully; she’s been upset at me since Friday. That’s why I wanted her _here_ so we could have dinner and game night and try and forget all about this Max nonsense.”

“There’s always next week.”

He paused, then just shook his head with a sigh.

After another few minutes of quiet thought,

“What kind of name is ‘Max’ for a girl, anyway?”

“Oh, don’t be silly, dear. It’s short for ‘Maxine’, isn’t it?”

He hummed thoughtfully.

“Maxine. Hmm.”

* * *

Victoria liked Max’s room.

There was a certain intimacy to the closeness of the walls and ceiling.

But that was probably just due to her being used to her own monster of a room.

Even just talking in it had a fucking echo of her voice.

Max was looking much better after their shopping trip - not just only in her new clothes; Max _did_ look much better in those, too.

But she was also smiling, and there was less irritation about her eyes.

Victoria was helping.

Max was checking herself out in the mirror.

She’d been doing it for more than a few minutes now, but that was fine.

Victoria started to realize Max just needed time every so often to space out and collect her thoughts.

In private, the silence was companionable, anyway.

In public, they’d have to work on it. Max needed to be in the moment when strangers were around.

Max finished looking at herself in her new clothes and turned to face Victoria.

Victoria had ended up sitting on the edge of Max’s bed, just looking through some of Max’s older photos.

Max had known she wanted to be a photographer for much longer, and had a much larger backlog of photos for her to work with.

Victoria learned she was wrong about the amount of effort Max was putting into things.

Max _was_ trying about her photography. This wasn’t all entirely luck. The photos she showed Victoria were carefully selected. Though Max’s larger, unabridged catalogue, Victoria could see her progressing and learning how to take better, more interesting shots.

An alarming ratio of them were either of animals or selfies, but.

That was okay, too.

Victoria liked looking at Max’s face.

She put them down when she noticed Max was looking at her.

Max had a distant, dreamy kind of look plastered on her face.

Her smile was so warm.

Victoria should have taken a picture of it.

She hadn’t seen this look before and it was making her heart do weird things that she’d have to analyze, later.

“I um… wowzer. I don’t know what to say about all of this, Victoria.”

Max’s voice was equally gentle and warm.

The tremor in her voice was gone.

But the _content_ of her words were hilarious.

Victoria snorted and almost choked up a lung.

 _Wowzer_ was so fucking adorably dorky and so perfectly Max.

Max at least had the decency to blush and look down.

She shifted on her feet and rubbed at her own shoulder with a hand.

Victoria opened her mouth.

But she hesitated.

Victoria wanted to say something, to tease her about this very peculiar word choice.

But she recomposed herself and sighed, instead.

That was kind of an immature reaction. Max was trying to be genuine, here.

Victoria stood up and grasped at Max’s shoulders.

Max looked up. She could meet Victoria’s eyes again.

The warmness of her smile didn’t go anywhere.

Proximity still wasn’t fucking helping.

But Victoria still had one thing left that she wanted to do today.

She wanted to make this friendship more equal and balanced.

“Hey. Listen. I didn’t really answer your question fully, from earlier.”

Max blinked and her expression cycled between confusion and alarm before settling on something flat.

“What question?”

“Sit.”

Victoria sat back down on the bed.

Max sat down right beside her.

“About why I was being nice to you in the bathroom.”

Max opened her mouth.

Nothing came out for a few seconds, but eventually,

“Oh.”

Victoria nodded slowly. She crossed her arms and looked to Max’s wall.

It was now or never.

Victoria had definitely never told any of her friends about this.

But in a weird sort of twisted way, that actually made this easier to get over with.

Max wasn’t going to try and use it as some kind of fucked-up leverage in some stupid chess game that no one cared about outside of high school.

Victoria could get a little weight off of her shoulders for once.

“It’s because you reminded me of myself when I was in middle school.”

Max’s eyes went wide.

But she remained silent, since she had the feeling Victoria wasn’t done yet.

She wasn’t.

“I was something of a loser. I had money, but it only went so far. I had this _stupid fucking voice_ in my head that constantly told me I wasn’t worth anything. That I didn’t know what I was doing. That any problem that occurred was my fault.”

Victoria sighed deeply.

“It was paralyzing. I was miserable.”

Victoria rubbed at her own arm.

“My parents helped me through it. I shared with you some of that same advice, earlier. It’s really helped me a lot.”

When Victoria looked back to Max, that warm smile had come back.

Victoria found herself smiling too, despite herself.

Without too much warning, Max moved forward and wrapped her arms around in a tight hug.

Victoria wanted to say something, again.

Her instinct was to resist, to push Max away.

But that’s not what the rest of her wanted, right now.

Particularly not the part of her that was paying very careful attention to the way Max smelled when she was this close and the way her breathing came down Victoria’s neck and shoulders.

Victoria just stilled herself, instead.

She closed her eyes.

She sighed deeply.

And just relaxed, enjoying the intimacy with Max.

This was nice.

Victoria could get used to this.

Her next thought was around a knocking coming to the door.

Max broke away from the hug quickly and sat up straight.

Victoria slowly opened her eyes.

Mrs. Caulfield opened the door and greeted them both with her nicest smile.

“Max, your dad is home. It’s time for dinner.”

She paused for a second, and looked to Victoria.

“You’re certainly welcome to join us, Victoria. I can drive you back after dinner.”

Victoria considered it for a moment.

She really should be at home with her own family, right now.

It was family night, and her father was very incessant that she not miss any of them.

But then she looked over and saw Max positively beaming at the suggestion.

But then she heard Max giggling.

But then Max stood up and took led Victoria out of the room by her hand.

Family night could wait.

* * *

Max sighed dreamily as she looked up to the ceiling of her room from her bed.

Her mother was taking Victoria back to her own house, now.

All things considered, today went really well.

It had a sucky start, but clearly Max had been wrong about Victoria.

Missing the call must have bothered her a lot if she went so far out of her way to come over here, just to reassure Max.

If this was some kind of game Victoria was playing, it was an impossibly elaborate one.

Max was comfortable enough dismissing the idea outright, now.

Victoria wasn’t doing this to take advantage of her later.

Max wasn’t going to have the rug pulled out from under her.

They had bonded over mutual personal insecurities.

This felt a lot more like the friendship that Max knew.

Max paused, in her thoughts.

Not quite friendship.

Ever since Victoria put Max into her lap, Max couldn’t stop thinking about the intimacy.

And that hug felt so natural.

It came so much easier to her than trying to find the right words to tell Victoria to let her know that Max cared.

Max didn’t have the words for this new not-quite-friendship thing she had with Victoria.

She looked over to her phone, on the nightstand next to her.

Someone else might.

Max picked up her phone and called her old friend from Arcadia.

Chloe Price.

The first time since she moved.

Max just had to tell someone about all of this.

It was too exciting to not share.

Chloe picked up pretty quickly.

“Chloe.”

Max’s voice came out louder than she was expecting it to.

“Yoooooooooo!”

Max had to move her ear away from the phone’s speaker, slightly, since Chloe was basically shouting.

But she smiled wider, anyway.

Chloe tended to have that effect on her.

“Chloe!”

Max’s voice came out with little giggles now.

“Dude don’t do that! You had me worried. I thought you died or something.”

Max rolled her eyes.

“It was just a week or two, Chloe. Chillax.”

She heard an exaggerated groan. She could already imagine Chloe’s pouty face.

“Which is like _five years_ in best friend time, _duh_. Whassup?”

Max told her about moving.

Max told her about her new school.

Max told her about being bullied.

Max told her about Victoria.

Max told her about Friday.

Max told her about Today.

Max told her about just a few minutes ago.

It all just kind of came out of Max without her really meaning to.

But it was okay.

Chloe was always good at listening.

“I’m about 600% sure that means she’s your girlfriend now, lez-bean.”

And she always knew what to say to make Max blush and shake her head quietly.

But she was smiling.

Wider than she had

Since she moved.

* * *

On Tuesday, Victoria encouraged Max to do the photo-exchanging exercise with someone else.

She could tell Max was trying to puff her chest out.

She looked like a totally different woman with the clothes that Victoria picked out for her.

The first day, it wasn’t quite as easy as she was hoping.

Max still stammered, she still had some difficulty with eye contact.

Over the next few days, she improved.

During lunch, Victoria would insist that Max tag along.

Victoria had meticulously planned and hand-picked certain members from her social circle that were a bit quieter and wouldn’t get on Victoria’s case as much about Max’s presence.

That was awkward for a few days, too.

Victoria had the idea to get Max to bring her guitar along to lunch, one of the days.

It helped, a lot.

Some of her friends could finally see the Max that she saw.

Happy.

Confident.

Smiling.

Beautiful.

Max took her guitar to lunch more often.

It was a crutch, at first.

But it soon became a genuine conversation piece, since Max was a total dork about it and Victoria wasn’t the only one to find it endearing.

Victoria bought Max some more clothes over the next few days.

Victoria was the one mostly making the decisions, but Max had her own ideas about some things.

Max insisted she have at least one pair of white skinny jeans.

Victoria didn’t think she could pull them off.

Victoria was fucking wrong.

 

As the days seamlessly shifted into weeks, their dynamic continued to evolve.

Max still had trouble with meeting new people, but among even casual friends she could keep more regular eye contact.

She needed more breaks from people than most of Victoria’s other friends and couldn’t hold a conversation for nearly as long, but.

They could work on that.

Victoria was expecting to help Max, a lot.

What she wasn’t expecting was for Max to help her.

They called each other increasingly regularly after school.

It helped Max since it gave her all of the practice she needed at casual conversation.

It helped Victoria since she could finally remove some her quiet burdens and vent about her frustrations and difficulties.

Victoria didn’t realize how mean some of the things she was doing actually were until she tried to casually relate them to Max and she only got horrified silence at the other end of the line.

At first, Victoria would just roll her eyes and largely ignored what Max had to say about Victoria’s attitude.

She was naïve.

She was too kind.

It’s not like she was a fucking genius at social interactions, either.

But it put a nagging, persistent voice in the back of her head.

Victoria had enough of her fucking internal voices, but this one was nicer than most of the others.

Less accusative.

Less spiteful.

One conversation in particular was going to stick in Victoria’s mind for a long while.

 

“So this bitch, right? I’ve been planning this fucking event for _weeks_ and this bitch just cancels at the last second for no goddamn reason. It’s whatever. Bullshit.”

Victoria’s tone was largely sharp and angry.

But not aggressively angry.

This wasn’t something that was severely bothering Victoria.

This was just one of the tiny little events that weighed her down.

And being able to share it with Max was a good way to get it off of her chest.

“It couldn’t have been for no reason. Come on.”

Max never quite spoke in the same language Victoria did.

Victoria was actually pretty sure she hadn’t ever heard Max cuss.

It was fucking cute.

Victoria rolled her eyes.

“Some shit about her mother.”

“Victoria.”

“Like I don’t know.”

“Victoria.”

“Probably some ---“

“ _Victoria._ ”

“Jesus Christ _alright_. Her mother had some kind of back problem, alright? Are you happy, now? She canceled to go visit her in the …”

Victoria suddenly paused.

She could already visualize Max frowning on the other end of the line.

And Victoria suddenly realized how fucking awful this sounded from Max’s point of view.

“… hospital.”

Victoria ended lamely, quietly.

Max just sighed.

She was quiet for a few moments.

“What if it was your mother?”

“What _if_ \---“

Victoria started, a little annoyed, but Max’s words were deceptively disarming.

When her brain actually had the time to fully register and process them, it left her speechless.

“I …”

Victoria sighed into the receiver.

She didn’t know.

And when she did know, she felt annoyingly fucking guilty about the whole thing.

“I don’t know. The same thing she would have done, I _guess_.”

Max hummed thoughtfully.

“Whenever I get mad at someone, I always try to remember that if I was in their shoes and had lived their life, I’d do the same exact thing.”

Victoria frowned.

Max was too fucking cute about all of this.

But Victoria couldn’t say Max was exactly wrong, either.

Victoria was quiet for a while, just considering what Max had to say.

Often their conversations would have periods of silence.

It was okay.

It just felt good to hear Max breathing quietly on the other end of the line, sometimes.

Some gentle rhythm to help make filing her nails or doing homework that much easier.

Eventually,

“You should apologize to her for getting upset.”

Victoria frowned again.

“I didn’t _say_ I got upset at her.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Victoria groaned and covered her face with her palm. Her fingers rubbed at either side of her eyebrows.

Max was fucking right and she fucking hated it.

“Just. Please. Apologize.”

Victoria’s face contorted.

“I am _not ---_ “

She started off, harshly.

“--- For me?”

But she felt some of that anger drain out when she heard Max’s quieter, more pleading tone.

Victoria could never really be upset at Max when she spoke like that.

She just sighed loudly, instead.

“Alright, _fine_ , hippy, you win.”

She heard giggling on the other end of the line.

Victoria gently smiled. Some part of her liked this.

This is the shit Max would do to her.

She was fucking ruining Victoria, draining her of some of her spitefulness and filling it up with fucking empathy.

Victoria did eventually apologize to her friend.

She wasn’t sure if she had ever seen her friend smile around her before.

Not like that.

It was nice.

Max even insisted Victoria give Blammy – _Becky_ – another chance.

Victoria didn’t, but, still.

It was the thought that counted.

 

As weeks turned to months, Max easily became Victoria’s best friend.

They talked every day.

They progressed from spending most of their time together outside of classes i _n school_ to just spending most of their time together outside of classes, _period_.

Max would usually invite Victoria to her home after school.

Sometimes Victoria would invite Max.

Usually only when Victoria’s mother was home, since Victoria still didn’t really want to expose Max to her dad, much.

After a while, the invites stopped.

There was no need to make the suggestion, anymore.

They were just a formality.

They both knew they’d end up at one of their houses together, one way or the other.

Victoria saw that giggling and smile from Max more often.

Max was still shy around strangers.

Victoria figured that’s just who she was.

Max was getting more confident in herself every day.

That was the important thing, really.

She could be a little awkward and nervous, so long as the words of mean people didn’t get through to her and build into a negative cycle.

It just took time to get there.

In the meantime, Max was a totally different person behind closed doors.

She even started to tease Victoria about various things and playfully challenge her.

And Victoria didn’t mind if it took forever for Max to get more comfortable being in public, so long as she was privy to the private version of Max.

* * *

Victoria woke up on time.

She always woke up on time.

She started to carefully peel herself out of bed ---

This wasn’t her bed.

She blinked and forced her brain into thinking, into working.

She stilled and just started to take in her surroundings.

This wasn’t her room.

She was in Max’s room, in Max’s bed.

Her head ached a little bit.

Her heart jumped a little bit.

But Victoria remembered herself and forced herself to calm down.

She was starting to remember _why_ she was here.

Max suddenly was very incessant that they watch a movie at her house. Last night. It _had_ to be late at night, and that necessitated Victoria staying the night.

Neither of their parents outwardly minded.

Max only had a tiny TV in her room, but it was okay.

Victoria didn’t pay much attention to the awful horror movie, anyway.

It was hard to focus on much else when Max decided to pointedly sit down next to her and nestle into Victoria.

She said the movies scared her and she’d want to hide.

Victoria learned later that Max was a fucking liar since these movies wouldn’t scare a toddler, and must have practiced that one a lot, since she normally couldn’t have pulled off a lie like that.

Max also knew perfectly fucking well how much Victoria liked that vanilla perfume and must have worn it intentionally to distract her.

Though it wouldn’t have been hard to distract Victoria away from this movie, anyway.

It was awful.

It was terrible.

It was one of the worst movies she had ever seen.

It even got giggles out of her and Max sometimes for just how terrible it was.

But maybe laughing at them like that and finding it as dreadful as they did was the entire point of watching them.

Victoria would have to show Max what a real movie looked like, sometime.

She had tons and tons of movies stashed away in her closet, somewhere.

Most of them were animated.

Max knew, and teased her about it.

A little bit.

But Victoria knew that whenever Max would try to get a rise out of her, it wasn’t some kind of game. Max just wanted to make Victoria blush and squirm or laugh and smile. Sometimes all at once.

It was nice.

 

Max was a surprisingly intimate person.

Victoria figured she’d probably be a bit distant physically, to go along with her conversational shyness.

But she definitely was not.

Max was far bolder with her physical contact than her words ever were.

They started holding hands more regularly.

It calmed them both down.

It made Max really giggly and bubbly, which in turn made Victoria happier.

Max also hugged Victoria an awful lot, especially when Victoria got annoyed or frustrated.

The grip was tight and compressing.

It forced Victoria to only think about the warm contact.

About the affection.

It’d always allow her a few moments to just sigh and forget about everything.

Max seemed to have zero personal space around Victoria.

Victoria figured _some_ line was being crossed by sleeping in the same bed, though.

But she wasn’t really sure which one or how.

Was it legal for her, as a lesbian, to sleep platonically in her best friend’s bed, with her, after snuggling for basically the entire night in what could only be described as a movie date?

It certainly wasn’t fucking something she was going to tell any of her friends about.

Whatever. Gayness wasn’t transmitted by touch.

So long as Max was straight then this wouldn’t be weird. It wouldn’t be awkward.

Victoria still hadn’t told her about the crush, or Victoria slowly coming to terms with the fact that she was definitely gay.

It was agonizing at first, but Victoria couldn’t keep lying to herself, and she had to fully understand what her emotions were, and what this attraction that she was feeling was.

And no matter how many times she trawled through her brain, looking for some kind of excuse or alternative explanation, she just kept getting smacked in the face with that one stupid word.

_Lesbian._

She just had a hell of a time trying to do any fucking research on the subject, since ---

Victoria’s thoughts were interrupted by the sheets moving, slightly.

The bed creaked and groaned and Max moved closer to Victoria.

Victoria’s heart jumped for the second time this morning, and her breathing hitched.

One of Max’s arms tiredly came to drape down Victoria’s side, just at about her belly.

At least they were both wearing night gowns so she wouldn’t have to feel Max’s fingers directly against her skin.

Victoria didn’t want to think about that right now.

Max’s face nestled into a spot on the back of Victoria’s neck.

Victoria didn’t move a god damn muscle and just tried not to shiver as Max’s breathing cascaded down the back of her neck and shoulders.

She shivered.

Damn it.

She then groaned, quietly.

“Good morning to you too.”

Max giggled distantly and softly.

With considerable effort, she pulled her face away from the back of Victoria’s neck, so that they could talk a bit easier.

“Good morning. Did you enjoy last night?”

Victoria nodded carefully, then realized only after the fact Max probably couldn’t see that.

“Yeah. I did.”

Victoria peeled off Max’s arm and shuffled her way out of the bed, ignoring any groaning sounds it made.

She stretched methodically and robotically after she got up, only to realize, slowly, that Max was staring the entire time.

And for some stupid reason, that made Victoria self-conscious and blush about it.

Max was already in a severe position of privilege to see Victoria without all of her fancy clothes.

Victoria slowly turned around.

Max was still staring, and had that dreamy smile on her face again.

She apparently had no shame in being noticed for staring.

“I need to bring some _real_ movies over next time. That was a _terrible_ horror movie.”

Victoria tried to ease her own sudden embarrassment by shifting the subject.

Max just smiled wider.

“Of course it was, that’s part of the fun. It’s no good if you can’t see a boom mic in frame in at least one shot…”

Victoria rolled her eyes.

Max giggled.

“I should get dressed.”

Max made a whining sound.

“Noooooo.”

Victoria raised an eyebrow.

She carefully imitated Max’s ‘no’, but turned it into a question, which earned yet another giggle out of her.

Max nodded.

“Yeah, exactly. No.”

Max’s voice was playful by now.

She patted at the spot where Victoria was,

“Come back to bed, ‘Tori. I wanna’ do something.”

Victoria frowned.

This was a thing, too. Max started to shorten her name.

Victoria didn’t let anyone shorten her name.

Then, Victoria just sighed.

Victoria didn’t let anyone shorten her name.

Except Max.

Her proposition wasn’t exactly something that required much convincing coming from Max, anyway, so she made her way back to the bed.

Victoria was just dying to know what on earth the helpfully-specific “something” could be.

“Okay, _hippy_ , what do you want?”

She settled into the bed on her back, but made a point of looking pouty and not looking directly at Max.

Max produced a camera.

That got Victoria looking at her directly, blinking stupidly a few times.

“Where the hell did you get that?”

Max shrugged.

“I always have one near my bed.”

Victoria bit her bottom lip.

“And I want a picture.”

Victoria opened her mouth but couldn’t form the correct words for a little bit.

She definitely wasn’t going to allow a picture of herself to exist without her in proper clothes.

Now it was Max’s turn to roll her eyes.

She seemed to be able to read Victoria’s mind.

Damn it, she was starting to be able to see Victoria’s emotions through her void-mask.

Victoria supposed that was bound to happen, eventually, with enough continuous proximity.

“Oh shut up. It’ll just be for me.”

She then smiled and scooted close until she was adjacent to Victoria, also on her back.

Well. If being this close to Max meant that she was included in those selfie pictures now …

Whatever.

She could get used to that.

Victoria didn’t make any intentional effort to do anything in particular with her face. Max put her head on Victoria’s shoulder, raised the camera up, and took the picture.

After blinking a few times to dispel the flash, she looked to the Polaroid being conveniently produced for Max.

And frowned again, slightly.

“You really need a digital camera.”

Max just hummed thoughtfully.

“I really don’t.”

Victoria sighed.

Max had recently started to get much more comfortable contradicting Victoria directly. Victoria associated it with the smiling, giggly side of Max.

It was a friendly kind of contradiction.

Sometimes, this Max was annoying.

Most of the time, she was fucking adorable.

Max flicked the picture back and forth --- Victoria resisted the urge to tell her she didn’t need to do that --- and peered at the resulting film.

Victoria felt self-conscious again.

Max was looking at the picture for too long.

“ _What_? Is there something on my face?”

Max shrugged and gave the picture to Victoria.

There wasn’t something on Victoria’s face in the photo.

Except a huge, stupid, wide smile.

Victoria lingered on looking at it for far too long, just like Max had.

Then she exhaled a shaky breath and closed her eyes.

“Actually. Can I keep this one?”

When Victoria lowered the photo to look back at Max, Max’s grin just about consumed her entire face and turned positively devious.

“Ms. ‘I don’t like selfies’ wants to keep one of my morning selfies. I’m so very honored.”

Victoria just rolled her eyes and tried to avoid feeling the blush that came to her face too severely.

“Shut up. I’ll let you take another one, later. But since you’re an actual 5-year-old and shoot on a camera from the stone age, we’ve only got just this one picture and ---“

Max’s giggling interrupted her.

Victoria was prattling on again and Max probably wasn’t listening anymore.

In fact, she knew that Max wasn’t listening anymore by the time she nestled back into Victoria and rested her head back on her shoulder.

Victoria just let her sentence and associated thoughts die off.

She just wanted to lay here, for a while.

Some kind of moment of zen, or something.

* * *

Eventually, Victoria went back to her house.

Max was just feeling all bubbly and warm for the rest of her morning.

She found her phone again and called Chloe.

Chloe wasn’t going to be up this early, but.

Max found herself not particularly caring.

Chloe definitely was _not_ up by the time she picked up.

The angry, grumpy, quiet stream of expletives Chloe uttered as she accepted the call was all the confirmation she needed.

But it just made Max giggle instead of worry or fret. She could picture Chloe rubbing her face and glaring viciously at whatever woke her up so early.

The giggles gave Chloe pause. Then she remembered why Max was probably calling.

The gears in Chloe’s head were slow sometimes, but they were always functional.

“So?”            

And Chloe was astonishingly good at shifting from one extreme mood to another. Just a second ago she sounded angry and bitter, now she sounded giddy and excited. Her voice was a few notes too high.

“It totally worked, Clo, ‘Tori totally bought it and I could snuggle with her aaaaa-all night.”

Chloe punched the air in front of her. At no point did she care that Max couldn’t see this at all.

“Score. Did you kiss her?”

Max bit her bottom lip.

“Um. No, not really. Your lines aren’t exactly the most … romantic.”

Chloe scoffed.

“You find me a woman who doesn’t like the line ‘I find the boobies are the most erotic part of a woman’s body’ and I’ll show you a woman who definitely doesn’t like pussy.”

Max really couldn’t tell when Chloe was kidding or being serious, sometimes.

It got a laugh out of her all of the same.

Chloe’s vulgarity always made her blush and a little anxious, but she was pretty sure that’s why Chloe was so vulgar in the first place.

After they calmed down from that, Max sighed dreamily.

“We did fall asleep together, though.”

“Yooooooooooooo!”

Max had to move her head away from the speaker again. Chloe was loud.

But they were both smiling.

* * *

The months turned into half of the school year.

Today, they were going to get their midterm reports.

Max didn’t seem to mind.

Max was pretty carefree, these days.

Victoria was basically chewing her nails off with anxiety.

There was a reason for that, though.

She didn’t breeze through her classes like she thought she was going to.

Music was way fucking harder than she ever remembered it being.

A lot of her bullshit science and math classes gave her difficulty, too.

She had to spend less time with Max and her friends just to keep her fucking head above water.

Victoria was sitting outside during lunch, on one of the tables positioned there.

She had two envelopes. Both of them had official seals from the high school on them.

One of them was for her. The other was for her parents.

They’d know the report hadn’t been tampered with if the seal was still on the envelope.

Victoria didn’t even notice Max coming to sit down right next to her.

Just even that of itself was enough to worry Max, slightly.

Victoria very rarely got lost in her thoughts or concentration.

She scooted closer until she was adjacent and placed her head on Victoria’s shoulder.

They were usually more reserved about their affections in public, but it’s not like there were all that many people around.

Victoria found herself caring less and less if people saw as they days went by, anyway.

Let them fucking judge if they were going to.

“’Tori.”

Max’s tone was light, and slightly playful.

“Max.”

Victoria’s was gentle and low.

Max frowned. That wasn’t typical for Victoria.

“What are you looking at?”

Victoria shook her head.

“What do you think?”

Max sighed.

“I’m sure you did fine. Everyone knows how smart you are.”

Victoria bit her bottom lip and blushed, slightly.

She’d heard some bullshit line like that coming from so many people.

It was whatever. She could easily ignore it and know they were just trying to score points or something. Fucking sycophants.

But it didn’t feel like that with Max. Max’s words felt genuine and honest; she had no reason to lie to Victoria about this.

“I don’t know.”

Victoria said, honestly.

Max moved a hand up to rub at Victoria’s arm.

It was her turn to sigh wearily.

“Well. I guess this isn’t going to go get any easier.”

Victoria put one of the envelopes down and carefully opened the other one.

She swore she never opened up a stupid piece of paper so slowly before in her life.

With great diligence, she unfolded the progress report.

It’s not like it was made out of fucking wet toilet paper or something but it felt like there was a lot riding on this.

“Yeah! Look all of those A’s, ‘Tori!”

Max sounded excited and happy. She giggled a little bit.

Victoria didn’t notice the A grades.

Her eyes immediately looked to the grade next to music class.

And couldn’t look away.

D.

 _Fuck_.

She looked to the sky, closed her eyes, and recalled the conversation she had had with her parents at the start of her semester.

Last year was such bullshit. Her father dictated all of the classes she went to and what her extra-circular activates were.

She did well. She was honor roll with straight A grades.

But she just wanted some more control of her life.

Her parents were willing to give her a chance, but her father was very clear with her.

She wasn’t going to mess up her future by fucking around in high school.

Victoria’s hands tightened on the piece of paper without her really intending them to.

After Max saw what Victoria did, she frowned, and carefully peeled one of Victoria’s hands off of the piece of paper to interlock their fingers and squeeze her tightly.

“What’s wrong?”

Victoria sighed wearily.

“Nothing. Just… some crap with my parents. It’ll be fine.”

Victoria didn’t look down or open her eyes.

She was lying to herself, and she knew it again, but this was a burden she couldn’t put on Max.

Max frowned. She knew there was something that Victoria wasn’t telling her.

But she didn’t have the words to extract this burden out of her.

Instead, she tried something else. Words were hard. Intimacy with Victoria wasn’t.

She turned her head over and kissed at Victoria’s neck.

Victoria exhaled a shaky breath, tightly squeezed Max’s hand, and tried to suppress the shiver that came anyway.

Max made a mental note that Victoria liked this.

She’d have to do them more often.           

“I’m here for you. You know that, right?” 

Max kept her voice quiet and gentle.

“Yeah.”

Victoria’s words were breathless and distant.

Unconvincing.

It put a worried pit in Max’s stomach.


	4. Something Less

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoria breezes through her classes.  
> Until she doesn’t.
> 
> Mr. Chase has an ultimatum.
> 
> Victoria means the world to someone.  
> Until she doesn’t.
> 
> Victoria tries to balance everything, somehow.
> 
> Victoria controls her own life.  
> Until she doesn’t.
> 
> She'll get it back when she deserves it.

Victoria quietly stood outside the room to her father’s study for a long time.

Her nails were practically tearing into along the skin at her arms.

She knew what she needed to do.

She knew he saw her grades by now.

And she knew what he would say.

She remembered their deal very clearly.

She bowed her head.

And just sighed severely, shaking her head.

Well, this wasn’t going to get any easier.

She unhooked one of her arms and pushed her way into her father’s study.

He was sitting at his desk, reading one of his books.

He only noticed her after the door closed behind her.

And fucking echoed because everything in this fucking house did that.

His chair was more like an office chair than a lounge one, and swiveled.

He utilized that to turn around, placing his book on his study table in the process.

His face was flat.

Victoria didn’t get her unfeeling gaze from nowhere.

But then he frowned, slightly.

“Victoria.”

“Dad.”

Victoria tried to not grit her teeth too severely. It wasn’t healthy.

But the absolute flatness of his voice unnerved her. She knew he became like this when he was being “business”-like.

“Your grades.”

Victoria felt her anger flare up for no reason she could discern.

“What _about_ them?”

It came out snippier than she would have wanted.

It wasn’t helping.

He frowned.

“You know the deal that we had made, Victoria.”

She shook her head.

“It’s just mid-terms, dad. I can turn it around.”

His frown deepened.

He clasped his hands together, putting his elbows to rest on the chair itself, and straightened his back to sit up perfectly straight.

His thumbs idly played with one another as he spoke.

“I talked to the teacher of the class that you’re almost failing.”

Victoria now frowned.

She didn’t like where this was going.

“And?”

He sighed.

“Victoria. You’re spending all of the class talking to Max, not doing work.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but.

She didn’t have any words to excuse that.

She just had a stupid blush on her face and couldn’t meet his gaze any more.

And she hated herself for that.

“We are not going to have a repeat of middle school.”

He said very flatly, still.

He sighed and shook his head.

“And you’re not going to learn if I just let you continue on like this.”

Her hackles raised and she looked back to him.

There was a sharpness about her face.

Her anger always managed to sail through her mask.

Her mask was never as good as her father’s.

“What! I can handle this. I know how to control my time. My life.”

He grunted.

“Do you? Your grades and your behaviors say otherwise. Tell me, Victoria, how many family nights have you missed?”

“I …”

Victoria looked down to the floor.

Damn it.

“A lot, I guess.”

Her voice was quiet now, and it lacked the confidence it had earlier.

“What did I tell you at the start of the semester? You need to learn how to manage your obligations. Your friends will come and go. Your education is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I can’t let you mess this up.”

He stood up and walked right over to her.

“Give me your phone. You’re grounded for a week. I’ll give it back, after then.”

Victoria’s face shot right back up and her glare was intense.

His face still didn’t move an inch.

She could never really intimidate her father.

“And you’re going to stop spending so much time with Max in class. I’ve already talked to your teacher. She’s going to let me know if you can’t manage your friendships in a healthy way.”

Victoria was livid.

But mostly speechless.

She didn’t really have anything to say to all of this.

She didn’t really have anything she _could_ say to all of this.

She racked her brain for some kind of lie, some kind of thread of logic, something to delay this process.

But she turned up with nothing.

And she had delayed for too long, now.

He bounced his hand up and down, and his face left its neutralness.

It became harsh and severe.

He narrowed his eyes.

His voice deepened.

His gaze was suffocating.

She looked down.

“ **Now, young lady.** ”

She sighed deeply, fished her phone out of her pocket, turned it off, gave it to him, and hugged at herself.

“Yes, sir.”

Her voice was flat and unfeeling now.

And she hated it.

_Your fault._

He took her offered phone and put it in his pocket.

He then crossed his arms.

“And you will either learn to fix this, or you will stop talking to Max entirely. This class will become an ‘A’, you hear me? If it does not, you’re done with Max. She’s never coming here again, and you’re never speaking to her again so long as you live in this household.”

_You didn’t deserve her, anyway._

Victoria wanted to protest more emphatically, but her father had drained a lot of the confidence out of her.

She just rubbed at her own arm.

She only had one, pretty lame thing to say.

It was really the only thing that came to mind.

The only reason her brained turned up for why she had to spend so much time with Max.

Talking to her.

Being with her.

Skipping out of being with her own family.

_Your fault. Your affections only make things worse._

She couldn’t hide from it any longer.

It was now or never.

“But … sir, I love her.”

His face did this contorting thing that would have been amusing in another context, since he was equally proud as her for the control he had over his emotions.

He finally settled on a frown.

“Chase women don’t feel like that for other women.”

Victoria’s jaw dropped.

Her eyes went wide.

_You’re not normal._

He then sighed and shook his head.

His face returned to its offensive neutralness.

“Now. _Please leave_ , go to your room, and study. This will be fine if you can just turn your grades around, young lady. You have no idea how much it pains me to do this.”

She didn’t believe him.

But she knew her lesson, now.

“Yes, sir.”

She quietly turned on her heel and walked out of her dad’s study.

Her face was bowed the entire time she made it back to her own room.

With a severe sigh, her father scooted his chair back to his desk and resumed reading where he was before.

It really didn’t bring him any pleasure to shut down her relationship with Max.

Victoria had to learn how to have healthy, productive, non-dramatic relationships.

He just wished that in his shock, he didn’t fall back to his own father’s words.

He didn’t want to become his father.

Those were different times.

He hoped she didn’t take them too seriously.

He’d have to find the courage to tell her that he was wrong to use those words.

Later.

Things would be different.

Things had to be different.

Victoria would learn how to either manage her relationships with her family, or Max would be out of the picture.

Either way, he’d have his daughter back.

They could be a family again.

It would be hard, at first, but.

They could work on it.

Everything was going to be okay.

* * *

Victoria’s life was hard, now.

Her obligations and social circles were pulling at her in all different directions.

She was like some kind of teddy bear that all of the kids in the class wanted to use, at once.

Victoria didn’t really know what to do about her music class.

Most of it was total Greek to her, and Max was of little help, either.

It really shouldn’t have surprised Victoria to know that Max was an intuitive by-ear musician; she didn’t really know much theory.

Just like her and photography.

Max even smiled sweetly the last time she brought it up, and asked why Victoria thought she wanted extra credit in the class to begin with.

Victoria’s family was now at odds with Max. They didn’t want her around, anymore.

Max’s family wanted Victoria around, though.

Some of Victoria’s friends didn’t like Max, some thought she was alright, a few thought it was absurdly precious and it took Victoria entirely too long to figure out why they were so smiley about the whole affair.

But Victoria’s friends were not the people she knew at the start of the semester.

They started attending more parties.

They started drinking alcohol, and doing drugs.

They started to be sexually active.

There wasn’t any way Victoria could see to make all of these threads in her life happy, at once.

Her friends wouldn’t be really happy unless she just didn’t give a shit about her classes and partied more often.

Victoria’s family wouldn’t be happy unless Victoria became a fucking monk or something and got rid of most of her friends.

Max’s family … well, they were happy with her now, but the cost of them being happy was everyone else being unhappy with Victoria.

This chess game was too fucking complicated.

It was too hard.

Victoria couldn’t do this.

_You never really could, either. You just lucked out._

Victoria didn’t know what to do.

Without her phone, she couldn’t even call Max to vent about all of this.

Victoria still wasn’t sure what she was to Max, or what Max was to her.

Victoria had been trying to hide it so severely from her parents for so long they had a totally warped view of who Max really was and what kind of influence she had.

But this wasn’t her father’s fault.

Victoria couldn’t hate her father for this one.

This was her fault.

All her fault.

Only her fault.

_Your fault._

If she had just been honest with her father from the start, then her relationship with Max wouldn’t look as unhealthy as it did to him.

Victoria never felt so alone as she did in that week.

* * *

Max noticed pretty quickly something was not right with Victoria.

Past the obvious that she wasn’t returning calls.

Victoria had a reason for that one, on Monday.

She had been grounded, basically.

Max frowned.

Victoria’s grades were overall far better than her own, yet it still wasn’t good enough for her family.

Max was happy that her family never treated her like that.

But even past the obvious of not returning calls, she was far more distant in class.

She didn’t want to hang out during lunch.

She didn’t want to hang out after class.

She didn’t want to come over, and she didn’t invite Max over. But at least that could be explained by her being grounded.

Max couldn’t figure it out.

It’s like someone flipped a switch, and the Victoria from the start of the year suddenly replaced her Victoria.

Victoria said she just needed to study.

Her grades weren’t good enough.

Max frowned.

It sounded like a lie, but what could she do?

Nothing.

Max just watched as Victoria slowly started to extract herself from her life.

She didn’t have the words, again.

* * *

Things got a bit better after that week.

Victoria had her phone again.

Victoria started calling Max daily.

She needed it, on some level.

Just something to let her vent and decompress a little bit.

Victoria’s parents were very clear.

She wasn’t going to Max’s house anymore, until her grades were better.

They didn’t say anything about Max coming to Victoria’s house, though.

They were happy so long as they could pull Victoria away into whatever activates they wanted to.

Victoria had a good excuse for Max coming over, anyway.

Max was good at music.

She played guitar.

Music was the class that Victoria was doing so poorly in.

This was a natural solution to her problem.

She could look like she was _trying_ to be responsible, and it was just coincidence that Max happened to be the one to help her.

After all, Max was the assistant for Victoria’s music class.

It would be just like having the teacher herself.

It was a lie and Victoria knew it, but she didn’t know what else to do, here.

She couldn’t just cut Max out of her life entirely.

But Victoria wasn’t sure she could go back to being like how they were at the start of the semester.

Or even a little bit after that.

Things were different now.

Victoria’s crush had progressed and she had stopped lying to herself about it.

She knew what this was.

A Chase always knows what their emotions were.

She just …

She couldn’t let Max know.

It’d make things too painful if this didn’t work out.

And she didn’t want to know if Max felt similarly.

Even if she was pretty sure she knew what the answer was.

It was a lie.

But it was a comfortable lie.

Victoria told it to herself every single time Max was around.

She couldn’t make this all work out.

But she had to try, somehow.

* * *

Victoria woke up with a shaky gasp.

She was about to peel herself out of bed and get ready for running, like she would have done on any other morning.

But she wasn’t alone in the bed.

There was another body, tangled with hers.

Keeping her from floating away, or something.

Victoria could feel Max’s fingers along the small of her back.

Max was still smaller than Victoria, even though they had both grown slightly over the year.

Max could fit into her just right.

Max’s mouth always came to rest so close to Victoria’s neck, and her breathing always settled along Victoria in just the correct ways.

She shivered just thinking about it, and again, when the actual Max did just that.

It was too early for her run, anyway.

Victoria wasn’t sleeping very well.

She should go back to sleep.

Victoria shifted a little bit and ---

“Mmmnn-what’s wrong?”

A very sleepy Max mumbled into Victoria’s neck.

She froze and sighed a little.

“I don’t know. Nightmare, or something.”

Max kissed at Victoria’s neck.

She did this sometimes.

Victoria’s body would always refuse to breathe for a few seconds afterwards.

Max tightened her grip around Victoria.

“Mmmmnn-well I’m not going anywhere. Just go back to sleep.”

Victoria relaxed underneath Max’s tightened grip, despite herself.

Sleepy Max was pretty convincing.

Victoria closed her eyes and tried to ignore the part of her that was only repeating one sentence, over and over again.

_Chase women don’t feel like that for other women._

She didn’t know how to handle the difference between who she was and who her father wanted.

Maybe there wasn’t any way to.

Maybe she was just broken.

* * *

As the weeks started to progress, her relationship with everyone shifted again.

She didn’t have the time anymore to talk with Max nearly as much.

They still had daily conversations, but they were more brief.

Victoria started to hang out with her older social circle during lunch more often.

She had been neglecting them – and other parts of her life – for Max.

Despite whatever bullshit feelings she had, she needed some kind of balance with everything.

That’s the only way this could work.

_You’re lying to yourself._

But spending more time away from Max just made everything more complicated.

Her social circle had concluded that she had become too soft around Max.

That she had lost their edge.

_They were wrong._

She knew this would happen, but she just simply didn’t care, for a while.

Now, with everything threatening to fall apart, she cared _desperately_.

Everyone had to know who she was.

In case she forgot.

She perhaps over-compensated in an effort to keep that thread of her life alive.

Her friends were kind of assholes, but she wanted to make everything work, somehow.

It was the only way she could convince herself that she was still in control of her life.

And everything wasn’t actually falling apart.

In a way that she didn’t know how to fix.

“ _Um_ , are you fucking blind? First you dress yourself like _that_ , and then you just run into people? Where did you even get those clothes? From a fucking homeless shelter?”

_Good. Tear her down._

Her spines were skewering some poor freshman who had the nerve to run into her in the hallways.

Two of Victoria’s friends chimed in.

“Did you even try?”

“I hear that’s very fashionable for the over-30 crowd.”

The poor girl wasn’t able to take their exhausting, overwhelming pressure.

She was crying and desperately trying to collect her things.

_Don’t let her recover._

Victoria’s arms were crossed and her stone of a face was being used to pulverize.

It felt _good_.

She didn’t have to think about anything else when she was bullying people.

It was intoxicating how stress-less it was.

It shouldn’t feel good.

This wasn’t who she was.

Max showed her that.

_This is who you are. Max is tricking you._

But if it wasn’t, why did it feel right?

Maybe Victoria was wrong all along about this.

Maybe Victoria wasn’t actually a nice person.

_This is who you are. You’re not a nice person._

Girly girl collected her stuff and quickly scampered away, crying.

Good.

That’s what she fucking deserved for delaying Victoria.

_That’s what she deserves for insulting you._

Victoria’s slaves high-fived each other after the victim was out of ear shot.

Victoria watched the little bitch go away.

When she turned her head around, she saw Max at the end of the hallway.

Frowning.

She had seen everything.

_Let the bitch stare. She won’t do anything._

Victoria opened her mouth to say something ---

One of her backup girls patted Victoria on the shoulder.

“We’re going to be late for class.”

Victoria frowned.

_She spoke out of line. Show her the error of her ways._

“Did I say you could fucking touch me? No, no I didn’t.”

But she _was_ right.

Victoria looked back to where Max was.

She was gone now.

Victoria just sighed and walked with her friends to her next class.

Whatever.

Max could deal with this if she wanted to be close to Victoria.

She was going to make everything fucking work, somehow.

_You’re lying to yourself. You know you just don’t deserve her._

She bit her tongue as she continued walking.

The voice in her head had changed between middle and high school.

It was encouraging and kind to her, but only when she was being awful to people.

That was new.

* * *

About a month later, things were going a bit better for Victoria.

Because she was spending less time with Max, she was meeting more of her family nights.

She was reconnecting with her family again.

It was slow, and painful, but it was progress.

But she could see the glares of her father whenever she invited Max over.

She heard the way he intentionally emphasized Max’s name in all of the wrong ways.

She saw him carelessly and coldly rebuke any efforts Max made to make amends for transgressions she wasn’t aware of and hadn’t even really committed.

Victoria’s efforts to keep Max sheltered from all of this had officially backfired.

And it was going to result in ruining her relationship with either her father, or Max.

Victoria didn’t know which outcome she was dreading more.

* * *

_This is your fault. You never do anything right._

Victoria just couldn’t fucking handle it when her voice tore her down anymore.

She stormed into her room and closed the door loudly behind her.

She flinched when the fucking echo hit her. Whatever.

She and Max had been taking pictures in their family’s garden.

Max tried to fucking snoop into what was eating away at Victoria.

She couldn’t fucking know.

This wasn’t her fucking problem.

_You don’t deserve her. She’s too nice for you._

And this fucking voice wasn’t making a goddamn thing any easier.

She was shaking, stewing with anger, but just uselessly staring at one of her walls.

Her anger sometimes had her doing this, and she couldn’t really figure out why.

She didn’t notice when Max came into the room.

Victoria didn’t care.

Max wrapped her arms around Victoria’s middle from behind.

Victoria didn’t care.

Max buried her face into the back of Victoria’s neck.

Victoria didn’t care.

Max exhaled gently.

Victoria wasn’t going to shiver.

She wasn’t.

She shivered.

God fucking damn it.

“’Tori.”

Max’s voice was thick with worry.

Victoria didn’t say a goddamn thing.

Max’s grip tightened on her considerably.

Victoria knew what this was.

This was the severe, crushing hug Max gave whenever Victoria got too upset.

And despite herself, and despite knowing that Max was clearly trying to manipulate her mood, she couldn’t help but allow it to do it again.

She sighed severely.

“Max. Just. _Ugh_.”

Her voice was short and angry. Her eyes were closed tightly.

Max just held the position firmly.

Victoria tried to move, but Max wouldn’t let her. She just made a grunting sound whenever she did and dug her position in even deeper to ensure Victoria wasn’t going anywhere.

“Count down with me.”

“I’m _not_ a fucking ---“

“20.”

Victoria bit her lip.

This was a thing, too.

As Victoria started to get angrier after the grades had come out, Max had devised a way to try and soothe her.

Max would count down from 20, aloud.

All Victoria had to do was close her eyes and count along with Max in her head.

She just had to stop her bullshit thoughts rushing through her head.

And just force herself to listen to Max’s voice.

To feel her breathing.

Her warmth.

“0.”

Victoria sighed again.

It came out a bit easier, this time.

Her arms had been crossed so severely that her nails were digging into her skin. She loosened them and brought them down to rest over Max’s own.

_You don’t deserve this kindness. All she does is give and give and all you do is take and take._

Victoria tiled her head back to push it against the front of Max’s head.

She didn’t know how long they had stayed in that position before Max gently broke away and dragged Victoria to the bed by her hand.

Victoria’s anger often left her feeling drained.

This was no exception.

She sat down on the edge of her bed a little miserably.

“What’s wrong?”

Victoria frowned. She looked over to Max with a harsh glare.

Victoria didn’t see a smile. She just saw Max flinch under the gaze.

_All you do is hurt people._

“Nothing is fucking wrong. Everything is just dandy.”

“’Tori.”

“I’m doing fantastically fine, about to fail some of my classes and ---“

“ _Victoria_.”

There was a harshness in Max’s voice Victoria hadn’t heard before.

It caught her off guard.

It wasn’t like Max to get upset or frustrated like this.

But Victoria stayed quiet, now. Her gaze softened when she looked back to Max.

There was pain in Max’s face and eyes.

Victoria’s breath hitched.

_You did this. You’re ruining Max._

“Victoria. Please.”

Her voice came out pleading.

Victoria could never really be all that angry or upset at Max when she used this voice.

“I can’t help you if you don’t let me.”

“I …”

This was another one of Max’s alarmingly disarming words. Victoria didn’t know if this was something Max’s parents told her or something but it was too sharp and effective for something that Max would have synthesized.

Victoria looked down to the ground.

She couldn’t meet Max’s gaze anymore.

Max sighed and scooted closer until she was adjacent.

She brought her hands to Victoria’s and tightly interlocked them.

She kissed at Victoria’s neck before resting her head on Victoria’s shoulder.

“Please.”

Victoria couldn’t resist anymore.

“Everything is fucking falling apart and I’m going to lose _everything_.”

Victoria said, miserably.

Max just hummed gently.

“Remember what I said? That I’m always here for you?”

Victoria sighed.

“Yeah…”

“I meant it. _Please_.”

Victoria was silent.

She was considering the words.

For a little while, she could believe it.

She could just sit here and stare at her walls, with Max’s hands rubbing at her own and her breathing rhythm offering her a reminder that she was still alive and Max was still here.

Max wanted to be here.

* * *

The months dragged on.

Victoria was staying afloat, somehow.

She was balancing everything, somehow.

Her family was okay with Max being over, somehow.

Her friends were okay with her attitude now, somehow.

Max’s family were okay with Victoria not being around as often, somehow.

She wasn’t failing all of her classes, somehow.

Victoria’s fight with her inner-demons was exhausting. Everyone encouraged different parts of her and Victoria didn’t even know who the real Victoria Chase was, anymore.

Was the subservient little girl her father wanted who got perfect grades and didn’t so much as touch a beer?

Was it the short, but not terrible person that Max kept finding in Victoria?

Was it the cold-hearted bitch that her friends needed to keep them in line?

Was she all three of them at once?

The chess game was too complicated, sometimes.

* * *

Victoria woke up next to Max, again.

It was about the end of the school year, now.

Victoria had figured out why her parents allowed Max around more often, now.

Her teacher had communicated to her father that she was no longer doting over Max so obviously in class. That she was paying attention. Trying to do the right thing.

Victoria didn’t think she could breeze through it, anymore.

She tried so hard to not fail it, and fuck everything up.

Her parents were a bit more reluctant to let her stay the night, but Victoria didn’t always tell them when Max did.

Not like they would always fucking know with how big this fucking house was. Someone could effectively hide a small army in here.

But Victoria was feeling increasingly guilty about her relationship with Max.

Whenever she woke up next to her, it was no longer calming and reassuring.

Instead, she had to fight with herself to convince herself that this was a good thing.

She could normally ignore her terrible fucking side when Max was around, but it found a unique way to get at Victoria’s sanity, now.

It played off the very fucking things it was encouraging her to do when she was around her other friends.

_You’re too mean for her. You don’t deserve her. You never help people. You only hurt them._

She couldn’t fucking say it was wrong and she couldn’t believe it was bullshit.

The only reason Max was still around her was because Max was a goddamn friendless loser who didn’t know her aperture from her exposure and ---

Victoria sighed severely.

Victoria wasn’t normal.

She wasn’t healthy for having these internal struggles.

She wasn’t normal for her attraction to Max.

Something was going to give, eventually.

She just hoped the fallout didn’t harm Max too much in the process.

Victoria didn’t know if she could take it if she truly hurt Max in some way.

If she proved to her that after of all this time, Max’s gut feeling when they first met was right.

If she proved to her that after of all this time, Victoria didn’t deserve to be trusted.

She didn’t deserve the kindness.

Max kissed at Victoria’s neck.

Victoria sighed again. She could feel Max’s arms tightening their grip.

She didn’t deserve this.

But she could be selfish and enjoy it for a little while longer.

* * *

Victoria invited Max over to her place on the final day of the school year, when she had her final report card.

Victoria had studied her ass off and sacrificed so much to ensure that this one would be flawless.

She knew it would be, somehow.

She could enjoy the night with Max and prove to her dad that this relationship wasn’t unhealthy.

For a little while, they happily enjoyed themselves in the garden behind Victoria’s house.

Max always liked taking pictures of the butterflies, bunnies, and other random creatures that were about.

Victoria always found it so endearing when Max concentrated really hard on something.

Afterwards, Victoria delivered the report card copy to her father, proudly, and made her way back to her room.

Max was waiting for her inside.

Max had already opened up Victoria’s copy and was positively beaming when she came in.

“’Tori. You didn’t fail your music class.”

Victoria smiled.

“Yeah?”

Victoria made her way over to the bed.

She moved Max’s guitar down to the foot of the bed.

She was still inviting Max over with the pretense of helping her with music class, but it was still a workable excuse.

Besides, she always liked listening when Max played it.

“Yeah. Have a look.”

Victoria bit her lip and took the offered sheet of paper.

Her heart sank.

Next to music class, “B”.

She bit her lip so hard that she was pretty sure it was going to bleed.

Max frowned.

“A ‘B’ can’t possibly …”

But Max didn’t get to finish the thought.

Victoria was already up and stormed out of the room.

She didn’t want Max to see her crying.

And she had to intercept her dad.

Max didn’t deserve to see this conversation, either.

Victoria was still fucking shielding her from all of this nonsense with her family and the die were finally cast.

Her deal around the midterms couldn’t have been any clearer.

All A’s, or Max is cut off.

 

Victoria just about ran into her dad.

 _Shit_.

He must have opened the report card earlier than she did and had already started to come to see her about her grades.

She hadn’t told him that Max was here right now.

He couldn’t go into her room, and that’s exactly where he was going.

“Dad.”

She stood in front of him so as to give him pause.

His face was severe. His voice was raised.

“What did we tell you about your grades, young lady?”

His gaze was difficult to meet, but Victoria had to.

“Dad! It’s just a ‘B’. It’s not going to tank my future.”

Victoria honestly did think this was a pretty big fucking overreaction. She didn’t want to go to Harvard or something.

She couldn’t help but let that irritation sink into her voice. It caused it to come out loud and a little uneven.

“Do you think the president of the united states gets a ‘B’? Or how about the chief of medicine of Seattle Regional?”

But her father had far greater ambitions for her. He didn’t just want a photographer for a daughter. He didn’t even just want an art gallery owner for a daughter. He wanted Victoria to be the best she possibly could be.

To do all of the good in the world she could.

“Dad… there’s never been a woman president.”

It gave Victoria a little bit of pause and unbalanced her.

Her father was just trying to look out for her. He just was a bit too ambitious and blunt about it.

“And there won’t be, if every young lady has your attitude.”

Her father sighed severely and rubbed at his forehead.

He continued after some delay.

“Victoria, Chases don’t get ‘B’s in classes. We’re leaders. Trendsetters. You’re going to be something, someday, and you’ll be thankful you had such a rigorous up-bringing.”

Victoria bit her lip.

_You failed. Your fault._

But she was quiet for too long, and he made his way past her towards the room.

She opened her mouth to protest, but she couldn’t really think of any good excuse for why he shouldn’t go in there.

She just quietly turned on her heel and followed.

He opened the door, and immediately paused.

“Oh. Maxine. Good afternoon.”

His tone hadn’t gotten any friendlier. He was probably still trying to glare Max to death, too. He did that for his business associates that needed to know their place.

But Max wasn’t one of those people.

She was just some poor girl caught up in the wrong things.

Her father hating Max was entirely Victoria’s fault, and she knew it.

It made her chew her lip even further.

She hoped he wasn’t going to bring up their deal right in front of her.

“Good afternoon, Mister Chase.”

Max’s words were so gentle and calm. It wasn’t the sickeningly saccharine tone that Victoria used when she wanted to charm parents, it was just genuine and happy.

He made a flat grunting sound.

Victoria sighed quietly and looked down.

“What are you doing here?”

She blinked. Right. She still hadn’t told him.

She looked up.

“Dad! I inv--”

Her father looked right back to her and his gaze immediately choked off her words.

 _Shit_.

Was that what Max was seeing?

And she still chose to be around here all this often?

He lowered his voice and whispered something to her.

“Our deal. **Fix this**.”

Victoria’s heart sank.

Almost immediately the confidence was drained out of her.

At least he had the decency to share these words only with her. Victoria wouldn’t have to explain she made a fucking gamble with Max as a barging chip just so she could have some more fucking control over own her life.

She ruined everything.

This was her fault.

_Your fault._

It was always her fault.

Then he raised his voice again, to save face, because apparently he still cared about that for someone he knew wasn’t going to be around any further.

“Quiet, young lady.”

By now, Victoria was hugging at herself. She rubbed at her arm and looked to nowhere in particular.

She looked to the wall, eventually.

She didn’t have any more words for her father, now.

She just needed to find some way to deal with Max, now.

This was fine, since her father was done talking to Victoria now, anyway.

He looked back to Max.

Victoria still didn’t look at the scene. Their words came and went and felt a little distant, a little ethereal.

She was starting to space out.

“I uhm… I brought my guitar over. I was going to help Victoria with her music class.”

“Is that so.”

“You told her that was the class, didn’t you?”

Victoria didn’t say anything.

It took her a while to even realize her dad was talking to her, again.

“Answer me.”

She only now realized she still had to participate in this conversation and found her voice again to respond to him.

“No, sir. Max is good at music. I needed help.”

Victoria’s voice was flat and unfeeling, now. It felt so painful to even talk right now.

But it was enough to make him happy. He looked away from her. Victoria went back to staring at the wall, just trying to lose herself.

“Fine. Maxine, you will help her until no later than 10pm. Victoria, we’ll talk about this, later.”

Her father walked away. He slammed the door.

Victoria flinched.

But there was quiet after that.

She could think about things and what she was going to do.

What she had to do.

Max didn’t deserve any of this.

Max didn’t deserve a friend with such bullshit parents that she would inevitably get caught up in their crap when all she was trying to do to help.

Max didn’t deserve a friend that was only nice when she was around.

Victoria didn’t deserve Max.

She had to deal with this.

At some point, Max’s arms wrapped around her belly.

Victoria didn’t care.

Max’s face came to rest on the back of Victoria’s neck.

Victoria didn’t care.

Max squeezed tightly.

Victoria didn’t care.

Victoria _did_ care and it was fucking the root problem of everything.

“Max…”

Victoria’s voice was so weak now. She hated how drained and distant it sounded.

“Tori.”

Max’s was still warm. She was trying to fix Victoria again.

_All she does is give and give. All you do is take and take._

“Please, just, let’s …”

Victoria found some words.

This would be easier to do if Max wasn’t making such physical contact with her.

But they were still weak and unconvincing.

When she tried to move, Max just squeezed again and whined.

Victoria wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

“Not while you’ve got sadbrains again.”

And her words didn’t convince Max for a second.

“Max. This is serious.”

Victoria tried again, with a little bit more power in her voice.

Max moved her forehead up a bit more. It came to rest on the back of Victoria’s head.

“I’m being serious, too.”

Victoria sighed severely.

Max was more convincing than her, right now.

Maybe she’d find the right words that would let her make both her dad and Max happy.

She was lying to herself.

Victoria knew the words didn’t exist.

She fucked up this whole situation and ensured there wasn’t a peaceful resolution.

Victoria unconsciously tilted her head back to press it against Max’s forehead.

She knew Max would be satisfied after a few minutes, and just had to bide her time.

She continued to think about what she was going to say.

Afterwards, she pulled away and made her way to the bed.

She sat down, and Max sat down right beside her.

Victoria looked at the ground.

“Feeling better?”

Max’s voice was still thick with worry.

“No.”

Victoria’s voice had recovered somewhat.

“Want to talk about it?”

Victoria sighed.

“No.”

Max frowned.

“Hey.”

Victoria didn’t respond.

Max got closer. She found one of Victoria’s hands to squeeze.

Victoria unconsciously slouched her posture.

Max nestled in close and kissed at Victoria’s neck.

Victoria shivered.

Max did something she hadn’t before, after the neck kiss. She trailed her mouth upwards to kiss somewhere else.

Victoria’s eyes went wide.

 _No_.

This _couldn’t_ happen.

Not like _this_.

Not _now_.

This _couldn’t_ be her first kiss.

This _couldn’t_ be Max’s first kiss.

It was the most painful thing she’d ever done in her life to move her face away and replace her own cheek with a finger.

She wanted nothing more than to kiss Max, after all of this time, after all of her bullshit emotions.

But it wasn’t their fate. It wasn’t meant to be.

She felt Max’s body tense up immediately when she kissed that finger instead.

“Max. No.”

_You don’t deserve her. You ruined her. You tricked her into liking you. You made her weird like you._

“I …”

Now Max’s voice was the one that came out quiet and without ease.

_You only hurt people. Ruin her. Show her the bully that you are._

Victoria shoved Max’s hand away.

Victoria stood up.

She tried to steel her voice.

She knew what she had to say to make her father happy.

It was the thing that would hurt Max the least out of her all of her possible options.

It was the cleanest possible break.

But no matter how many times she ran through it in her head, no matter how much she psyched herself up for it, the words still came out so broken and disjointed and pained and desolate.

“Max. I can’t … be friends with … a girl who … likes me … that way.”

Her mouth was rejecting every syllable, but she still soldiered through it.

Victoria started to tear up.

Max was spacing out again.

That was okay.

Victoria needed a few moments to recompose herself, anyway.

After those few moments, Victoria cleared her throat and steadied her voice.

Max couldn’t hear the waiver from the sadness or see the tears in her eyes.

She had to believe that Victoria wasn’t really that way, or this wouldn’t work.

Max would know Victoria wasn’t being honest and she’d fucking snoop and snoop until this worked out again.

And that would just be the most painful thing in the word.

“After tonight, I don’t want to see you, ever again.”

Her voice came out more confident, this time.

“Tori I ---”

Max almost immediately responded.

Her voice was higher-pitched and panicking.

“ _Don’t_ call me _that_ \---”

Victoria didn’t want to think about Max’s affection, about all of the idiosyncrasies of their relationship right now.

That’d only make this harder.

“Victoria, please, I can’t … I don’t … without you…”

Max trailed off. Ultimately, she hadn’t practiced anything.

She didn’t have some big dramatic speech like Victoria would have lined up.

She was just a scared, vulnerable little girl.

That Victoria had fucking hurt and ruined with her stupid games and inability to control her own life.

_All you do is hurt people._

“I know.”

Victoria walked out of the room. Her head was bowed the entire time.

When she closed the door to her room and ignored the fucking echo of the even larger hall ways, she made her way to the bathroom.

Her world was blurry, but she didn’t care.

 

When she made it to the bathroom, she locked the door, and collapsed onto the toilet.

The bathrooms were one of the places that _didn’t_ have a bullshit lock that could be undone with a key above the door frame.

She pulled out her phone, put Max’s number on block, and dialed up Taylor Christensen.

Victoria didn’t deserve Max. She was too mean, too awful, and didn’t know how to really balance something so pure with the rest of her fucked life.

Her father had just proven that.

But she did deserve some kind of real friends.

Max had shown her how much better she could be when she had a fucking vent of some kind.

Taylor didn’t pick up.

She really shouldn’t have, she had no reason to.

But that was okay. Victoria knew what to say when she was bounced to voicemail.

“Hey… Taylor, it’s me, Victoria. Look. I’m sorry. About … about everything. Can we just meet at lunch tomorrow? I want to talk. Please.”

Victoria hadn’t been nice to Taylor. She’d gotten upset at her a few times whenever she had to deal with her mother’s physical issues.

But Taylor was a nice person, ultimately. She wasn’t judgmental and her interests went just beyond her clothes.

They had a lot in common, actually, but Victoria was always too afraid to broach them for fear of making herself look vulnerable, or weaker. For failing the Emperor’s New Clothes Game of Popularity.

If nothing else, Victoria’s relationship with Max had given her the words to know how to fix some of the relationships she fucked up.

Max also gave her the little fucking voice in the back of her head that told her that Taylor didn’t deserve Victoria being so mean to her.

Victoria didn’t deserve Max.

But she did deserve a good friend, like Taylor.

Taylor called Victoria back.

Victoria picked up.

“Yeah-no we’re talking about this _now_ and you’re telling me why it sounds like someone just ripped your fucking heart out.”

Victoria smiled, despite herself.

Their dynamic had already changed. Into something more balanced. Taylor wouldn’t dream of talking to Victoria like that, earlier.

But she wasn’t just a slave, anymore.

That was concern in her voice.

A lot of irritation too, but.

Victoria knew that if she was in Taylor’s shoes, she’d be pretty irritated, too.

Victoria wasn’t going to tell Taylor everything.

But she really needed a person to talk to about all of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this ends on a more bittersweet note.


	5. Nothing at all

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoria floats away.
> 
> But she's going to be okay, somehow.
> 
> Victoria has a plan.
> 
> Taylor has a plan.
> 
> Nathan has a plan.

Despite it all, Victoria’s life actually got easier after she cut off Max.

Maybe she was still in shock, maybe she’d feel awful about it later, maybe this officially made her the worst friend in the world, but without Max, she had way more time to balance out the rest of her life.

Even when Victoria thought she had cut back the time she was spending with Max earlier, they were still in daily contact and Max still spent an awful lot of days and nights at her house.

Her father was much happier with Max out of the picture.

She still isn’t quite sure how much she can trust that he didn’t over-react or that he really was trying to act in her best interests.

But it got easier to believe with every family night she attended.

Most of Victoria’s friends were largely happy with it, as well.

Victoria only later learned that a lot of them only tolerated Max because Victoria just intimidated them into doing so by proxy.

She had more time to spend with them, as well.

She was going to be okay.

* * *

About a week later, Victoria stormed into her room.

She couldn’t even relax in her fucking garden without thinking of Max and it fucking pissed her off to no end.

Even now, she was half expecting to find some brown-haired hippy come hug at her to try and calm her down.

Even if she was basically a fucking ghost to Victoria, now.

This wasn’t fair.

She wasn’t supposed to feel this kind of ache so persistently.

What was the point of her friends and family being happy if she felt miserable whenever she thought of taking a fucking picture?

This couldn’t do.

She needed to do something dramatic.

Victoria stewed for a few moments in angry thought, staring at some fucking wall again.

She marched into her closet and got one of her largest boxes.

She then proceeded to put basically every single item that Max had interacted with in her room into it.

This was her old life.

The life that she had failed to balance correctly.

She needed to forget about this or it was going to fucking tear her to pieces.

After she was done, she viciously taped the box up and shoved it back into her closet.

She made a mental note to take it out into the wilderness somewhere and burn it, later.

For now, it could just fucking sit in her closet.

Out of sight, out of mind.

She was going to be okay.

* * *

“Do you even _have_ a brain or do you just grope your way around like a fucking zombie?”

Victoria was tearing into someone again.

When she recalled the event later on, she wouldn’t even be able to remember why she decided to.

Maybe it didn’t matter.

This is what her friends wanted.

This is what the voice in her head wanted.

This is what made her cool and popular.

This is what made her successful.

After the loser collected themselves enough to disengage and get away from Victoria, Victoria spotted Max, again.

It had been something like half a year since she spoke to Max last.

For the most part, Victoria was able to put Max out her mind.

Her relationship with her father had improved considerably.

All of her fake friends properly feared her, again.

She had a new best friend in the form of Taylor.

Victoria started attending parties and drinking.

She was doing all of the motions necessary to replace Max.

And it was mostly working, now.

Max never directly tried to talk to her in school.

She tried through some other mediums, but not persistently. She took the hint well enough when Victoria just ignored her.

Victoria didn’t even really have a chance to see Max all of that often with their schedules being totally out-of-sync, now.

She made a point of not taking any music classes this year, and tested out of her sophomore-level photography class so she could be in the junior-level one instead.

But she would still occasionally see Max, little glimpses of her at the end of hallways.

Max would always duck away when she noticed Victoria was looking at her.

But Victoria knew what she saw.

Maybe Max was attracted to Victoria’s raised voice.

The whole point of projecting it like that was so people heard it, after all.

Just the little glimpses of contact here and there were enough to make Victoria sigh severely and rub at her forehead.

This really wasn’t going to get any easier if she kept thinking of Max.

There was a party tonight.

She should be focusing on that now, instead of the ghosts from her past.

_You never deserved her anyway._

Victoria put Max out of her mind.

She could focus on her new life, for now.

She was going to be okay.

* * *

At the end of her school year, Victoria’s grades were flawless.

She was honor roll, again.

She delivered her report card to her father very proudly, this time.

He was so pleased.

She was just about to leave his study when he hesitated.

And told her that he understood what Max meant to Victoria.

He would be okay if she came back over again.

He didn’t want her over nearly as much as before, though.

He was sorry for how it all ended up happening.

He wasn’t expecting Victoria to have cared about Max so much, and was inappropriately blindsided.

He wanted Victoria to learn how to balance her life, still.

It wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

It was supposed to make things easier.

But he was happy with her progress.

Victoria was speechless.

The thought of reconnecting with Max had been verboten fantasy territory for a whole year, now.

Victoria considered it a lot, that night.

Her life was basically together.

She looked at Max’s contact information, just sitting in her phone.

The terrible part of her told her that she’d just end up hurting Max again.

And her father _was_ kind of right about the whole thing.

She really did only get everything back together after she cut off Max.

This was terrible.

At least when her farther forbid it there was nothing she could really do.

Now, she was as responsible for Max’s suffering – if not more.

Could she really be the kind of person to just ignore one of her former best friends for years on end?

_Yes. Just another way of hurting people._

Victoria sighed _._

She didn’t dial the number.

She’d think about it some more.

If she _was_ going to reconnect, she needed some kind of dramatic event as compensation.

She couldn’t just send Max a text or something.

That wouldn’t be appropriate.

Max wouldn’t believe it was genuine.

She shouldn’t.

Victoria probably wouldn’t, either, if she was in Max’s shoes.

Victoria needed more time.

She was going to be okay.

* * *

Victoria didn’t remember much of her senior year.

She knew that she attended a lot of parties, took up smoking, and started to drink more regularly.

The smoking helped her to smooth over some her anxieties.

The drinking helped her to keep forgetting things she didn’t want to remember, and made the parties less awful.

Victoria’s friends said they liked her better when she was drinking.

She knew that the senior prank was terrible.

She knew that she hadn’t gone to anyone with prom or any other of the school events.

And she knew that she didn’t care.

She was used to this, by now.

No one dared to tease her about it, or even directly bring it up.

They didn’t really need to. They already knew the reason why, anyway.

All it would do is just result in them being skewered.

And that’s just the way that Victoria liked it.

It was very comfortable not to have to worry about that part of her life, anymore.

Her grades were still flawless.

Her dad bought her a car for being able to manage her life.

He let her choose where she wanted to go to college, after some very unsubtle prodding towards and Ivy League school of some kind. He’d pay for that, too.

She could believe she earned it.

If she tried enough.

Taylor was so excited.

It would be so much easier to get around now.

Victoria just rolled her eyes.

But Taylor’s enthusiasm had her smiling internally.

Victoria managed to rarely think about Max these days.

Her life was easier, that way.

She never did call her.

It became easier to justify not doing it with every passing day.

She was going to be okay.

* * *

It had been two years now since Victoria had stopped talking to Max.

Victoria was a freshman in college, now.

Blackwell.

The college of her dreams.

The photography program that featured the legendary Mark Jefferson, among some of her other favorites.

She was moving into her new room.

Victoria never really liked the vast excessive largeness of her house, but she didn’t want to over-compensate and go for something miserably tiny the first chance she could choose for herself.

She got an on-campus apartment.

As far as apartments were considered, it was modest.

As far as student housing was concerned, it was giant and vacuous.

But she wanted at least her own fucking bathroom since there was no way she’d get caught spending all of the time she did putting on her makeup in some fucking public bathroom.

No one could know all of the effort that went into Victoria Chase.

Taylor Christensen came into Victoria’s room with a few boxes.

Well, _almost_ no one could know.

Victoria crossed her arms as Taylor placed the boxes down.

“Which are those?”

Taylor shrugged.

“’unno, it’s your crap.”

Taylor leaned over and looked around the sides of the top-most box, looking for some indications as to what it could contain.

It didn’t have anything on it.

“Ugh, you didn’t even use a sharpie or something to show what’s in these boxes? Is this like the first time you’ve moved?”

Victoria frowned. She was pretty sure she had at least labeled each of the boxes. Whatever.

“What do you think?”

Taylor looked up to Victoria, opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it.

“Touché. Well, there’s only one way to find out, then.”

Taylor smiled and produced a box cutter.

“Yeah. Whatever.”

Victoria shrugged and went back to the items she was unpacking earlier.

Taylor went quiet for a while.

Victoria didn’t mind, since it meant she wasn’t going to be teasing her about Victoria’s awful packing abilities.

It’s not like she moved every damn day. What did it matter?

Victoria eventually finished with her current box.

It was clothes. Lots and lot of clothes.

She’d laid them all out on her bed flatly so as to organize them coherently in her closet, later.

Victoria studied her work for just a few more seconds before picking up the empty box and turning around.

Taylor had a picture frame in her hands.

_What ---_

Victoria’s eyes went wide.

She dropped the box and stormed right on over.

“Give me _that_.”

She swiped the picture frame away from Taylor, who squeaked.

But she could fucking deal.

_Of course._

Of course it was. Victoria knew what picture it fucking was before she even saw it.

The one with her and Max.

Lying in bed together.

Smiling.

Happy.

Two years ago.

Victoria had insisted she keep it after Max snapped it, all that time ago.

She was smiling so very wide in this picture.

She couldn’t stay very angry for very long looking at this picture.

She couldn’t really stay that mad at Taylor for very long, either.

So she just sighed severely, walked back over to her bed, and let the picture fall down onto it.

It was quiet for a while.

She didn’t realize she was slumping and staring at the picture until Taylor came over and placed a hand on Victoria’s shoulder.

Then, she slumped even further and sighed again.

“Who is that?”

Taylor’s voice was alarmingly gentle and quiet.

Victoria frowned.

“No one. It’s nothing.”

So was Victoria’s. It surprised her.

Taylor squeezed Victoria’s shoulder.

“What did you always say? ‘I can’t help you if you don’t let me?’”

Victoria groaned and closed her eyes.

That _fucking_ sentence.

Taylor was a god damn snoop.

Just like Max.

Victoria was quiet, for a while. Just thinking.

She had _thought_ she put all of this behind her.

She had _thought_ that she had moved on.

She had _thought_ she would be able to think about all of this without getting all emotional.

She was fucking wrong, though.

When forced to directly remember what it was like to be with Max through this stupid photo, she couldn’t really escape the ghosts of her past.

Taylor could know a little bit.

“That’s Max Caulfield.”

Victoria bit her lip, but continued on.

“We were close, for a while.”

Her voice hadn’t gotten any louder. Only now it sounded wistful and she hated it.

Taylor frowned.

“What happened?”

Victoria rolled her eyes.

“Life did.”

Taylor squeezed Victoria’s shoulder.

“ _Victoria_.”

Victoria sighed loudly and peered at her.

But she couldn’t maintain anything angry, so her face just fell into something that probably looked miserable.

Judging from the look Taylor gave her, anyway, which was drowning in soft sympathy.

“ _Look_. I fucked up. Alright? I blew everything up, two years ago. That’s all you need to know.”

Taylor was quiet for a long time.

She was considering Victoria’s words.

She was fitting this new information with her timeline of personally knowing Victoria.

She was fitting this in with the Victoria she knew three years ago.

And the one she knew two years ago.

And the one she knew one year ago.

And the one today.

And she knew which one was the happiest.

And she knew which one was the one that started to be really nice to her.

And she knew which one was the one that took their casual friendship into something more meaningful.

And she had to know.

She steeled her voice.

“She’s the reason you apologized to me with those big crocodile tears, wasn’t she? After …”

Taylor trailed off.

Victoria felt some tears dropping onto her bed.

It didn’t matter. Her eyes were still closed.

She couldn’t respond for even longer than Taylor had hesitated earlier.

“Yeah. She was.”

Her voice came out halting and miserable. She hated it even more than her wistful-sounding voice.

Victoria crossed her arms and turned away from the bed.

She walked back to the box from whence the picture came, slowly.

She put her hands gently on the edge of the box and tapped her fingers along it.

She knew what this box was, now.

She _thought_ she had thrown this box away a long time ago.

She _should_ have thrown this box away a long time ago.

There was nothing in here but reminders of who Victoria could have been, and failed to be.

 

This was the box of her old high school stuff.

Before she fucking burned everything and started a new life.

She knew exactly what was going to be near the top.

Always there for her.

In case she ever forgot.                      

Her day planner.

Her world was pretty blurry when she picked it up.

But she didn’t need to see to know what was written on the first page.

All of those years ago.

She could feel it.

Her fingers traced over the letters.

_Make a real friend._

She had never crossed out the goal.

She stopped caring about this stupid book after she had earned Max’s trust and she never returned to it when things got hard.

In a weird way, losing Max was the single best event in Victoria’s other relationships.

Victoria needed real, good friends.

And the little bits of empathy that Max had filled her up with made it easier to remember herself and not fuck them up.

Taylor was behind her again. She spoke as softly as Victoria had.

“You should talk to her again.”

Victoria gripped the day planner tightly.

So tightly she was a little worried she might break a nail, or something.

“ _No_.”

It came out too quickly, too uneven.

Taylor flinched.

Victoria inhaled sharply. She tried to even out her voice.

She put the day planner back into the box and crossed her arms.

She closed her eyes.

“No. She … she hates me now. I made sure of that. We’re different people now. I’ve moved on.”

Victoria had told herself this so very many times over the years.

It was such a comfortable thought.

It was so easy to repeat, she could do it effortlessly right now, even when her voice was shaky and her world unclear with tears.

But Taylor didn’t believe it.

She shouldn’t have.

It was a fucking lie.

And they both knew it.

“You don’t look like you’ve moved on.”

Fucking …

Victoria turned on her heel.

The plan was to smack Taylor on the shoulder for that sass.

The plan was to be tough and tell her she’s full of shit and it’s not like that at all.

The plan was to reassure both of them that this was just an emotional period.

She had spent two years now without breaking down like this, after all. More-or-less.

Victoria didn’t follow her plan.

Instead, she collided with Taylor, and just cried on her shoulder.

Victoria hadn’t moved on.

The memory of that stupid morning kept replaying in her head and it wasn’t getting any easier to deal with.

But it was okay.

Taylor hugged her.

Taylor was a real friend.

She wasn’t going to judge Victoria for this weakness. For this vulnerability.

Victoria needed a while to just cry it out.

Taylor was capable of providing it.

She was already thinking.

Scheming, one might say.

If she ever saw Max, she had to make sure that Max would at least _try_ to talk to Victoria again.                                                                                                              

She knew that Victoria would talk, now, despite any bravado or lines she fed to Taylor.

And she knew what Max looked like, now.

She had a full name to go with.

She had always heard rumors, particularly whenever Victoria showed up stag to school events, but never had any pictures or faces to associate with it.

Victoria never gave her anything when she asked about it, before.

This changed everything.

 

After Victoria had recovered, and they had finished doing more moving and unpacking, Taylor had to go back to her own dorm.

It was getting late.

That was okay, too.

Victoria wanted some alone time, anyway.

She put away just enough of her clothes into her closet so she’d have some space to sit down on her bed.

She found her day planner again and just looked at the first page for a long while.

_Make a real friend._

This goal had been done for years, now. She achieved it with Max, and then ensured that after she lost her, she’d always have at least one good friend.

Eventually, she found herself a pen.

And crossed out her previous goals.

She needed a new one.

And she had an idea of what that might be.

_Reconnect with Max._

She wrote it down carefully and underlined it a few times.

Victoria hadn’t moved on.

She wasn’t sure she ever would.

Next year, Victoria knew, Max would come to this college.

It was both their top choice.

And no matter how hard the breakup had been on Max, Victoria knew she was still going to succeed.

Victoria couldn’t reconnect over a text or a phone call.

She just couldn’t.

She had tried so many times over the years but the terrible part of herself was too convincing.

She’d just hurt Max more.

She’d just hurt herself more.

Instead, she would delay some of her photography electives.

She’d have a special chat with Jefferson. Victoria knew that Max liked him too and would do anything to get into one of his classes.

Victoria was too fucking awful to fix this like a normal, healthy human being.

But she knew the proximity with Max would give her a fighting chance to deal with her awful side and fix things.

Victoria wasn’t even sure if wanted to be just friends with Max.

Maybe something more.

Maybe something less.

She’d find out, later.

Maybe her hormones were just clouding her thoughts, in high school.

Since when do high school romances really work out, anyway? Especially all of the way to college?

Max would probably just be a good friend.

But that was okay.

Victoria really liked having Max as a good friend.

She was going to keep the picture, this time.

Some kind of reminder of a different part of her life, or something.

It’d make things a little bit more difficult for a while.

But she was going to either learn how to move on from her emotions about Max or manage to deal with this part of her life without actively rejecting it and shoving it away.

She was going to be okay.

* * *

Victoria could feel the music even outside of the damn building.

It was impressive.

All of the parties she had been to in high school could, at most, get a little dinky room somewhere.

This was an entire gymnasium.

It was a different league, now.

Someone had spent real money in setting this up.

She came here with Taylor.

Victoria really wanted to take her mind off of this week, and there was no better way to cap a Friday off.

Inside, the music was even louder, and the persistent roar of chatter was almost overwhelming.

But this wasn’t Victoria’s first party.

There was a haziness about the air that she knew came from weed.

It didn’t even phase her one bit, anymore.

She crossed her arms and stiffened her face.

There were a lot of new people here who needed to know who she was, and that she meant business.

Over the years, she had refined her techniques and approaches.

By the end of her senior year, no one doubted that she was the queen.

But she wasn’t the queen, here.

She was just a freshman.

That couldn’t do.

Taylor had some friends she wanted to introduce Victoria to.

Victoria had some friends she wanted to introduce Taylor to, as well.

It was nice.

Victoria would at least try and remember the names that Taylor gave to her.

She’d forget all of the other faces here by tomorrow morning, but.

They wouldn’t forget Victoria.

She made sure of that.

Sometimes in subtle ways.

Sometimes in more aggressive ways.

These no-names in particular had to know.

Victoria had been this person for so long now, it didn’t even impact her mood.

She was able to effortlessly move between the queen and the socialite.

This was part of the balance that she had learned.

And she was putting it to good use.

 

About an hour or so into the party, some jackass bumped into her.

This was Victoria’s biggest pet peeve.

People disrespecting her, particularly her personal space.

She turned on her heel to accost the idiot directly.

She was good at unloading on people by now.

“Watch where you’re fucking going.”

He was a brunette. It looked like he put a lot of product into his hair, too.

But he had a really tacky varsity jacket that was too bright and too red.

Whatever.

He had been walking away, simply not caring for bumping into Victoria, but the words gave him pause.

He turned on his heel with a dangerous grin.

She was more interested in how gaunt his face looked and the severity of his eyes.

She didn’t feel a presence like this quite every day.

“Watch where _I’m_ fuckin’ going? Do you even know who you’re talking to, lady?”

His words put him in the typical douchebag camp, but there was a kind of un-evenness to the way his words connected to one another and flowed.

Combined with the severity of his look, it would have been enough to intimidate most other people.

Victoria wasn’t most other people.

She rolled her eyes.

“Let me check.”

She paused dramatically. She looked up to the ceiling, made a humming noise, then looked back down to him with a flat expression.

“No.”

He cocked his head slightly, and there was a brief moment of just disbelief.

Victoria wondered if people ever directly challenged him that often.

He then righted his head and laughed.

“Fuckin’ _comedian_. I got you.”

He pointed at her briefly with his free hand to emphasize.

He took a sip of his drink, some kind of beer in some kind of unlabeled bottle.

Even if his words were a bit harsh and aggressive, she could see the grin.

He wore it nakedly.

He was enjoying this.

He liked some push back in his life.

It reminded her of herself.

“I’m Nathan Prescott.”

He extended his arms wide.

“And I _own_ this _fucking_ school. I _own_ this _fucking_ party. I _own_ you.”

So he had money. That explained some things.

He was talking a bit too loudly.

People were staring, now.

This was making a scene, now.

Good.

This would be an effective way to show a large number of people at once that she wasn’t to be trifled with.

Victoria’s confidence never dampened or shrank in a crowd.

If anything, her flair for the dramatic just emboldened her in these situations.

She raised the volume of her voice to match his.

“So?”

Victoria looked at her nails.

“If I haven’t heard about you by now, you don’t matter.”

She looked up to him with her own dangerous sort of grin.

“You see this material?”

She picked at her top with two fingers before letting it fall down,

“I’m willing to bet it’s worth more than anything you own. You only exist in this _little_ shithole of a town. My family has art galleries all across the states. You’re nothing to me.”

His expression fell, and then hardened.

Victoria might have gone too far.

His arms slowly fell back to his sides.

He took a swig of his drink and the swirled the remaining contents in the bottle for a few seconds.

The gaggle of students around them quieted down.

This was more interesting than whatever they were doing prior.

It was tense for a few seconds.

But Victoria didn’t crack.

She kept her glare right on, steady, and didn’t move a muscle.

Eventually, he started to grin and he laughed boisterously.

Victoria hadn’t gone too far.

This was exactly what he wanted.

She was right.

“You’ve got some real balls, lady. I like you. Come on. This isn’t where the cool kids live.”

He turned on his heel and started walking to one of the ancillary rooms connected to the gym.

Victoria wore the mixed stares of the other students confidently as Nathan led her to it.

“Welcome to the Vortex Club.”

Victoria was already moving in the right circles and making the right impressions on people, and it was only her first week of college.

She was going to be okay.

* * *

Victoria had the worst fucking headache she’d ever had in her life.

She must have drunk way too much, last night.

She knew she woke up too late, too. Way past when she normally would.

At least yesterday was Friday and that meant it wasn’t going to really screw anything up.

She opened her eyes and was thankful she was still indoors, in some kind of windowless room.

Sunlight would fucking suck right now.

She was on some kind of tacky couch with way too many pillows and blankets on it.

It was a sectional, and she was on the far end, near an arm rest.

Her body didn’t want to move but she didn’t give a fuck.

She knew if she didn’t get some water she would hate life even more in a few minutes.

It didn’t make any less sucky to stand up, though.

She groaned and rubbed at her forehead.

Fucking vertigo.

She carefully peered around the room, looking for other signs of life or other things to work with to accomplish her new goal of finding water.

Lots of drug paraphernalia. Some discarded condom wrappers and various bits and pieces of clothing.

No bodies or nothing. She was alone.

There was a coffee table nearby with a bunch of open drinks on it.

They were all beer bottles, though, and they were all pretty much empty.

Some chairs.

Some boring decorations on the walls.

Mostly posters for other parties.

How masturbatory.

Victoria raised her eyebrows when she looked backwards.

There was a bed back there.

She didn’t even know how they could have fucking managed that; the door into this place didn’t look nearly wide enough.

It was one of those needlessly-elaborate kinds of beds, too.

Not like they just flopped some kind of mattress in here.

It had a frame that extended all of the way up to the ceiling and curtains all around it.

Now that she had been awake for a few minutes, more parts of her brain were starting to reconnect and work.

Her senses were less dulled.

This fucking headache, though.

She heard some soft crying, now.

She blinked.

She thought she was all alone in this room.

She did a double-take.

The only place the crying could have been coming from was the bed.

She really needed some water, but …

This was already kind of a weird morning, so she could entertain another distraction.

She very carefully made her way over to the bed. Her body disliked walking even less than standing but it could fucking deal.

She pulled the curtain off to the side.

And hoped very dearly whoever was crying was still fucking dressed.

Thankfully, he was.

Nathan.

He was laying on his side, with his phone off to the other edge of the bed.

He must have been exceptionally lost in his thoughts since he either didn’t notice the curtains moving and her standing behind him, or he simply didn’t care.

Victoria carefully considered her options.

The easiest option would be to just pretend she never saw this. Maybe she could use it as ammo later to get better access to parties, or something.

But.

But.

 _But_.

There was that _other_ voice in her head.

The one that came out only every so often.

The one that usually helped her to save her relationships when she was about to fuck them up.

It sounded a lot like Max.

_He’s obviously hurting. He doesn’t have anyone to talk to. He probably just acts a big game but needs real connections. Just like you do._

And it was really fucking convincing, sometimes.

She had unconsciously crossed her arms. She ended up doing that a lot whenever she was just stationary. She allowed her arms to fall back to her side.

She tried to keep her face soft.

“Hey.”

Fuck. Her voice sounded way too hoarse. Her mouth was dry. She really did need some goddamn water.

But she steeled herself, anyway, since she knew what she wanted to say and her voice needed to cooperate right now.

It took him a little while, but he eventually stopped crying so openly and shifted so he was sitting on the bed.

She backed up slightly so he could rest his legs off of it.

He looked down at the ground for a long time before looking up to her.

His eyes were red and there was no harshness in his face, like there was last night.

He must have been crying a lot, and it sapped him of his ability to present as the big tough man he wanted to be.

“The fuck do you want? No, wait, let me guess. You had your phone out and were recording it or whatever-the-fuck. You want some favors. That’s what fuckin' every ---“

His voice was miserable and low, but still sharp.

But the content of his words basically validated her operating theory.

He was just like her.

“Nathan.”

He frowned, but went silent.

“I didn’t record it. I don’t want to use this to hurt you.”

She pushed the bed curtain off to the side a bit more.

She carefully sat down next to him.

He was looking at her. His eyes were wider, this time.

“Tell me about it.”

She kept her voice as soft as she can manage.

He scoffed, and looked away, to the wall, somewhere.

“And why the fuck do you think I’d want to do that? I don’t even know you.”

She closed her eyes.

She sighed deeply.

“Because I think I have a pretty good idea of what you’re going through right now.”

She bit her lip. It was now or never.

“In high school, I didn’t want to have any friends, since I was scared of people constantly using any vulnerabilities as leverage against me. I thought everyone just wanted me for my money, or something.”

When she opened her eyes again, he was still looking off to the wall.

Thinking.

“Yeah.”

His word came out more as a sigh than anything else.

He closed his eyes and bowed his head.

After some delay, he looked back to her.

“You don’t know me, lady.”

She frowned.

He wasn’t done.

“But I guess out of any one of the Vortex Club assholes who could have found me … it’s lucky that I got you.”

She smiled, softly.

So did he.

Then she felt a pulse of agony from her headache and groaned.

She closed her eyes and rubbed at her forehead.

“Great, now I need some fucking water.”

He scoffed and leaned back to fetch his phone.

“Awww, poor baby dwunk too mwuch?”

She rolled her eyes.

But this kind of banter she was comfortable with.

It was familiar.

“Shove it, _rich boy_ , and lead me to some water already.”

He laughed.

He then put his phone in his jeans pocket, stood up, and shoved his hands into his varsity jacket.

“I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

She smiled again.

He started to walk towards the exit.

“Come on. I ain’ fuckin’ carrying you nowhere.”

He was going to be okay.

* * *

Victoria was carefully studying some of the material for one of her courses.

She could breeze through these classes, but she decided she wouldn’t get that arrogant about her academics again.

So she would at least read the damn books and listen to the damn lectures.

Her studying was interrupted by a knocking to her door.

She sighed.

“Who is it?”

She projected her voice loud enough so the person would be able to hear it from the other side of the door.

“Taylor.”

Victoria rolled her eyes. What on earth did she want now, at this hour?

But it was whatever. Victoria had called her at even odder hours of the night.

“It’s open.”

Victoria didn’t look up from her books and didn’t pay much attention to the sound of the door opening and closing behind her.

At least it didn’t fucking echo.

Taylor carefully sat herself down on the edge of Victoria’s bed.

Victoria’s desk was a few feet away from her bed.

Taylor continued.

“Soooooo. I’ve been thiiiiiiiiiinking.”

Sometimes she would stretch her words in a sing-song manner.

It made good practice for Victoria’s mimicry.

Victoria grunted.

“About?”

Taylor leaned over on the edge of the bed.

She clasped her hands together and was grinning wide.

“About Max, duh.”

Victoria frowned.

She still didn’t look up from her coursework, though.

Taylor’s expression fell, slightly.

Victoria sighed softly.

“What’s there to know? I told you everything. We were close. Then I ruined it. End of story.”

Taylor now frowned.

This is the line that Victoria had fed her several times, but it was never very satisfying.

Taylor had never made Victoria smile like she did in that picture.

Victoria wasn’t telling her something.

“Yeah? Do you just keep random selfies you have with me from two-three years ago around here somewhere, too? Where is that thing, anyway?”

Victoria rolled her eyes.

“No. I don’t. And it’s in the drawer. I don’t want _random_ people in my room giving me the third degree over it.”

Victoria emphasized the word ‘random’ with such severity she hoped Taylor got the fucking clue.

She did, but it only made her smile sweetly, instead.

She opened Victoria’s night stand drawer and found it sitting right there, where Victoria said it would be.

It had been a month or two now since she discovered this, when they were moving Victoria in, and it was just such an odd thing that she couldn’t purge it from her mind.

Just the fact she still had it all of these years later was so bizarre.

Victoria wasn’t a sentimental person.

There were so many hints and clues just in this one picture.

Victoria _hated_ selfies like these, especially group ones.

Max was only half-dressed.

She could see some bra.

Victoria was in a night-gown.

Max looked stoned, or something.

Victoria had an enormously stupid, but honest and genuine grin.

Max’s head was on Victoria’s shoulder.

These were not the kind of things that Victoria did, nor tolerated.

She was fiercely private about her personal space and Taylor had literally never seen her without her day clothes on, even now, at like 11 at night.

This had to have been a sleep over.

Victoria didn’t do sleep-overs.

The more she thought about this picture the more questions she had.

Taylor looked up to see Victoria was still consuming her course work.

So she bit her bottom lip, and carefully removed the picture from the frame.

She was wondering --- yes. There was a hand-written note on the back.

_Max and Tori._

_Before things got hard. Sophomore year._

The part she focused on, the 'Max and Tori', was in hand-writing she didn't recognize.

It had to have been Max’s.

Max wrote that pet name.

_Tori._

Max had a fucking pet name for Victoria and it was the cutest goddamn thing she’d ever seen.

Not even trying to conceal her face-splitting grin, Taylor decided she could snoop a bit more with this new information.

“So… why did Max call you ‘Tori’, then? You’ve never let _me_ use any pet names.”

 _That_ got Victoria’s attention.

She dropped her book and shot Taylor a hard glare.

“How did you ---“

Her eyes went to the picture, out of the frame, and she just groaned severely.

“Ugh, you _fucking_ snoop.”

She scooted her chair away from her desk and turned her entire body to face Taylor properly, now.

It was a swivel office chair, so it allowed for this.

She was wearing a frown but she kind of always did that, anyway.

She crossed her arms to take up her usual defensive posture.

Victoria considered what she wanted to say for an unusually long time.

Finally,

“Yeah, fine, _alright_. She shortened my name, sometimes.”

Taylor couldn’t contain her grin, but still wasn’t entirely satisfied.

She was planning on finding another route to tease, but Victoria cut her off.

“Why are you so fucking curious, anyway? Do you want to date her or something?”

Taylor opened her mouth.

She was about to contradict Victoria directly since --- no --- but then she had a brainwave, and a very devious idea indeed.

Instead, she calmly closed her mouth and shook her head gently.

“Oh, no. I don’t think so. She doesn’t seem like my type; you know? Doesn’t look like she knows how to wear make up very well. I bet she wouldn’t even be all that presentable in public.”

This was a trap and it was one of Taylor’s more devious ones.

She knew Victoria was feeling defensive right now.

She wouldn’t analyze Taylor’s longer-distance thinking.

She’d just get stuck ---

Victoria scoffed and rolled her eyes.

“As _if_.”

She then smiled barely.

Victoria didn’t smile very often.

Taylor noticed.

“She looks just fine with a _little_ bit of foundation on to even out her skin tone. She’s not the kind of person to wear a lot of make-up, you know? But she doesn’t really need it. You don’t really want to hide those freckles, _anyway_. I considered doing some glittery eyeshadow or something to draw out her pretty eyes --- _no_ \--- that’d way too loud for Max and they’re kind of fine all on their own and ---“

Victoria started to ramble and caught on that she was being entrapped far too late.

_Fuck._

She stopped dead mid-sentence and just opened her mouth to let it hang open, stupidly.

She had the decency to blush furiously, at least.

Taylor felt like her grin was going to consume her entire face.

She fucking _knew_ there was something more going on.

Victoria totally was crushing on Max.

This was _not_ just ‘best friends’.

“Oooooooh my goooooood you thiiiiiiiirsty creeeeep you were _so_ crushing on her and you’re a filthy liar trying to hide it from me!”

Victoria looked away. To the ground somewhere.

She scoffed.

“ _Um_ , no, I’m-definitely-not ---“

But her words came out too quickly and too uneven and entirely too unconvincing.

Taylor giggled.

Victoria sighed viciously.

“Alright. Fucking fine. I maybe sort of had a crush on her. Are you fucking happy, now?”

Victoria sounded miserable.

It made Taylor bite her bottom lip.

Did she go too far?

It was Taylor’s turn to sigh.

“Victoria. _Please_ don’t get like that. I’m just so curious. You’re so secretive about all of this.”

Victoria nodded slowly.

“Yeah. It’s not … the best to remember all of it.”

“I …”

_Shit._

Taylor definitely wasn’t thinking about that.

She felt like such an asshole, now.

She looked down to the ground herself, now.

It was quiet for a few minutes.

Taylor didn’t know what to do.

She was _definitely_ making things worse with her snooping now and this is _not_ what friends ---

“She was nice.”

Victoria started, quietly and lowly.

Her face was soft now.

“Yeah?”

Taylor mirrored the slightness in Victoria’s voice.

“Yeah.”

It came out more as a sigh than anything.

“Really nice. Too nice for me, even.”

Taylor frowned.

“You can be nice sometimes, too.”

Victoria smiled gently, though the color still hadn’t returned to her voice.

“Yeah.”

 

Taylor left Victoria’s room that night with even more questions than answers.

This was becoming a theme whenever she tried to talk to Victoria about Max.

At least she wasn’t crying anymore when she brought it up.

Maybe these talks where therapeutic, somehow.

Maybe it normalized a part of Victoria’s life she wasn’t comfortable with.

Maybe she was just trying to rationalize her snooping.

She still had some questions she wanted to ask Victoria about all of this.

Later.

Victoria needed some time to recover in between these.

But she was going to be okay.

* * *

Nathan stared plainly at one of the walls in Victoria’s room.

He did that, sometimes.

Victoria wasn’t really sure what was going on in his head when he did that.

But he was pretty much a statue, and didn’t even respond whenever she’d get up from her study to do whatever.

It was almost creepy, but she simply stopped caring or feeling much about it at some point.

He needed this.

Victoria was happy to be something that could provide the space he needed to decompress like this in a judgement-free way.

Victoria groaned.

She’d been staring at this stupid book for too long and the words on the pages were starting to become meaningless.

She rubbed at her temples and just closed her eyes, like that’d help somehow.

It didn’t, really, but it was the kind of distraction she needed.

“So. You ever going to tell me about Max?”

Nathan’s voice always sounded so dry and cracked when he didn’t use it for a long time.

She mindlessly got up to fetch him a glass of water since she knew that’s what it was and she also knew he wasn’t going to fucking drink any until it became some kind of problem.

After giving the glass to him and staring expectantly until he grumbled and drank some, she sat back down on her study chair.

There was a pleasant enough distance between her bed, the desk, and her couch.

This place was still small by her standards, but that was just fucking fine.

“Jesus Christ.”

Victoria wasn’t really sure how much more she wanted to talk about Max, though. Taylor was fucking incessant and even some of her casual friends had gotten the bright idea to broach the subject.

It was kind of getting on her nerves.

“Why is everyone so curious about that, Nate?”

He rolled his eyes and took another sip of his water.

“Because you act all mysterious and shit about it.”

His voice sounded better, now. He continued.

“What do you expect? You’re pretty enough to have basically anyone you want in the school, but you turn into a fuckin’ monk that no one can touch at parties, and we’re all pretty sure it’s because you’re thinking of her the entire time.”

She crossed her arms.

“Am I not allowed to not be a whore?”

Nathan scoffed.

He just gave her a knowing look and she fucking hated it.

But she closed her eyes and sighed.

She slowly felt the weight of everything causing her head to bow.

She hadn’t really told anyone yet the full story, and it was exactly the kind of pressure she learned friends were good at dealing with.

It wanted to come out.

Nathan wasn't a snoop like Taylor, anyway. She knew he only brought this up because it was visibly eating away at her.

He could know more.

“Alright, alright, alright. _Fine_. She was _basically_ my girlfriend for a good half-year in all but name.”

His eyes widened, but he stayed quiet.

It looked like she had more to say.

She did.

“She was my first crush, my first real friend, my first love, and she was almost my first kiss, too. I’m sure if I wasn’t such a fucking pussy she would have been happy to smash, too.”

She counted off the elements on her fingers before looking up to him.

“And I couldn’t handle being who I wanted to be to her and still manage the rest of my life. So my dad gave me an ultimatum. Either I learn how to manage it, or Max is cut off. I didn’t learn how to manage it. So she’s gone now, and it’s my fault. She’s probably fucking miserable somewhere and it’s all my fault.”

He stayed quiet for a long time.

That was alright.

He did that sometimes.

The silence was companionable, and didn’t feel judgmental.

She relaxed back into her chair with a loud, exaggerated sigh.

“And now I haven’t talked to her for two years going on three and I just _can’t_ talk to her over text or phone. I can’t… I have to do it in person. It feels so fucking awful but I just …”

She trailed off. She didn’t really know how to describe the feeling; it wasn’t logical.

She knew every day she delayed it made it that much fucking worse, but delaying it another day was just the easiest way to deal with the increasing weight of the time she kept radio silence.

It was some kind of fucked-up feedback loop.

He frowned, slightly.

“And how do you plan to do that, now that you’re here and she’s not?”

She hesitated.

But she’d already told him quite a lot, so there wasn’t any more harm in him knowing a bit more.

“Because she’s going to be here next year and I’ve already did some ... _shenanigans_ to ensure I’d share her first photography class.”

He blinked.

“So you’ve been thinking about this a lot, then.”

She nodded, slowly.

“I … I have to apologize to her. I don’t care if she even likes me anymore, but, I just …”

She groaned.

“Max didn’t deserve any of that. Maybe I don’t deserve her, _lord knows I don’t_ , but she doesn’t deserve some asshole who ignores her for years on end, either. She deserves some closure.”

He was quiet for another while longer.

Thinking.

Considering.

Eventually,

“Alright. So we’ll crash at her place on her first night here. Then, you’ll stop being such a pussy about this, and apologize to her. And I won’t go _nowhere_ until you do.”

His words were careful and measured. This must have been what he was formulating in his head.

It took her a few seconds to fully appreciate what he was suggesting.

Then she blushed furiously and opened her mouth to say something, but she didn’t turn up with any words to use in response.

He was exactly right to think like this.

She knew she’d probably have some difficulty apologizing to Max, despite everything. That’s part of the reason she had to do it in person.

She’d probably overcompensate when it all became too _real_ and shift back into her comfortable bitchy self.

That could ... complicate things.

Nathan being around would calm her nerves.

She could stay on target with him around.

And he wouldn’t let her chicken out at the last minute.

She'd have to deal with it.

She'd have to tear off the band-aid.

This could work.

“I …”

She found some words, suddenly.

“I think I need that. We’ll see her on her first night, together. She should really know you if she and I are going to be friends, _anyway_.”

She then sighed contently.

“Thanks, Nate.”

He smiled sweetly.

“Anytime, V.”

 

Victoria thought about what would happen on that first day a lot, after that.

Max would be here in a few short months.                 

Victoria was getting better at thinking about and dealing with her past.

It wasn't as painful to talk about with Nathan or Taylor.

She didn't cry whenever she thought about what she did.

She felt tremendously fucking guilty, but, whatever.

She had dreamed up a thousand ways to apologize to Max.

Only a few of them were near perfect enough to suffice.

But they were all so distant, so whimsical, back then.

The actual thought of Max actually coming to here and making this an actual thing she had to actually do filled her with all kinds of anxiety.

But Nathan cared.

His plan would help.

She’d be able to do this, somehow.

This was all going to be okay.

* * *

At the start of the next school year, Taylor was quietly sitting outside, underneath a tree, next to Courtney.

By now, Taylor had convinced pretty much every single person in Victoria’s social circle that Max and Victoria should definitely be a thing.

Nathan gave her a _very_ useful piece of information. Something that Victoria only told him.

Max wanted to go to college here. Really badly.

And Max was a year younger than Victoria.

So she would be here, now, today, as her first day of class.

Taylor snooped pretty fucking hard until she found where Max’s dorm was and where her first class was.

She was pretty proud of her detective work.

It was all for the right reasons.

She was in exactly the right place to intercept Max.

It was far enough away that she wouldn’t look like the fucking snoopy creep she was, but close enough that she could definitely make out people leaving the dorm and get their attention.

And a smallish, shaggy-looking girl soon left the dorms. There was a mismatch between her clothes – which were nice, well-maintained and pressed, if a bit out of date – and the rest of her appearance. Her hair in particular looked like an angry brown monster.

But she knew who that was.

Taylor wasn’t going to forget that picture.

She wasn't going to forget those smiles.

That was Max.

She elbowed Courtney.

“Dude that’s definitely her.”

“How can you know? You’ve never met her.”

Courtney’s rejoinder was deadpan. She was still buried in school work. She didn’t even look up.

“ _Duh_.”

Taylor didn’t elaborate.

She didn’t have to.

She knew who it was.

Taylor cleared her throat, and shouted clearly.

“Max! Over here!”

Taylor wave and beckoned until the girl saw and started to come over.

Max had to know.

Today, Max was going to talk to Victoria.

One way or the other.

Taylor had to repay her debt to the person that brought her best friend out of Victoria’s shell.

Everything was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _  
> And you didn't even notice  
>  When the sky turned blue  
> And you couldn't tell the difference  
> Between me and you  
> And I nearly didn't notice_
> 
> _The gentlest feeling  
> _
> 
> Thanks for reading! Let me know how you liked it in the comments.


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